Jumping to Conclusions
by EchoKazul
Summary: Leonardo finds himself in a bit of trouble, and calls for help. Unfortunately, his brothers completely misread the situation, and things kind of escalate from there. *3rd Place Winner of 2017 TMNT Reader's Choice Awards: Most Exciting Action/Adventure (Mature)*
1. Searching for Something

New York City. A world of concrete, buildings, metal, stone, and glass. A city where falling rain rarely found its way into the soil and earth below like elsewhere in the natural world, but instead ran across sidewalks and filthy asphalt and down rusty metal grates to be channeled below in stone tunnels made by man.

That's why it was so rare a sight to see patches of nature in it's unaltered form. The surface of the small pond surrounded by trees and cat tails glistened in the moonlight as if diamonds floated on its surface. A lone bullfrog croaked out his song, trying to outsing the sound of the honking and trains off in the distance, and there was the faintest of splashes as a small pond turtle slipped from its perch on a half submerged branch into the water, causing soft ripples to mar the water's calm surface with a hundred shimmering rings.

Set into the side of a steep grassy slop leading down from the streets above, a large metal culvert loomed over the pond. The old metal edge of the circular opening was rusted and covered in a dripping thick coat of algae that hung down in stringy emerald sheets, and a small ribbon of water trickled out, sliding down the algae to drip into the water below in a rhythmic cadence.

Inside the culvert, deeper where the darkness hid all from the streetlights above, two white eyes appeared, narrow and dangerous as they surveyed the world outside of the sewer tunnel. These eyes were the eyes of a predator, a creature of the shadows, dangerous and silent. A creature who could strike fast and unseen, and then fade away like a ghost.

"Come on, Leo, it's clear! Move it, already!"

There was a surprised yelp, and the creature with the deadly white eyes was shoved out of the culvert entrance down into the pond below with a splash, shattering the peaceful silence instantly.

Leonardo sputtered with indignant rage up to the surface, wiping algae and mud from his blue clothed face. "Raph! That was completely uncalled for!"

"Ha!" the red masked turtle was obviously amused as he perched at the edge of the culvert. "That's what you get for being a slowpoke. We can't be feeding into those turtle stereotypes, you know."

"Don't worry Big Bro!" a third turtle cheerfully waved down at him from over Raph's shoulder. "I'll avenge you."

"What the...?!" Before Raphael could react, the orange masked brother playfully spun about, and, bracing his feet against his brother's shell, gave a great shove. There was another yelp and another splash, and then an angry, spluttering, "Mikey! I'll KILL you!"

"Ha! Serves you right!" Leo shot at him, already wading out of the water up to the shore and wringing out the tail ends of his bandana.

"Come on, you guys. I want to get the supplies I need before it gets too late." The fourth and final turtle, this one with a purple mask, stood at the edge of the metal tunnel as he carefully judged the distance from the culvert to the nearby shore. He then used his bo staff to make a smooth, calculated leap, gracefully catching an overhanging tree branch and arching his body to touch down lightly on the shore's edge without so much as getting a toe wet.

"Booyakasha!" There was a small tidal wave as Michelangelo cannonballed into the pond, and Donatello yelped as he got soaked by the massive splash.

 _"Mikey!"_

"Oops. Sorry, Dee. My bad." Mikey gave a sheepish chuckle, bobbing in the water.

Donnie growled indistinguishable threats under his breath, trying to wipe the worst of the drenching cold water off. He was just wiping the worst of it off, when Raph pulled himself up onto shore next to him, then gave a great shake like a wet sheepdog.

"Oh, come on!" Donnie tried to shield his face as he was soaked again.

"Seriously, guys! We're ninjas, remember!" Leo put a hand to his head in frustration. "Can we at least act like we're on a mission?!"

"What mission?" Raph scoffed, ignoring the daggers that Donnie was glaring at him. "We're just going to grab some trash for Donnie's latest little project from a junkyard. Honestly, I don't know why you dragged us all along. You don't need us for that, and I have shit I was planning on doing tonight."

"Yeah!" Mikey floated up to shore on his back. "Like that brand new copy of 'Ultimate Titan City Rampage' for the Gamebox waiting for me back at the lair. I haven't even cracked open the plastic wrapping on the game case yet, and you drag me out here! Do you realize what a torture this is?!" He flopped onto the muddy bank dramatically.

"You'll survive. And don't swear, Raph. Even if it's not the most glamorous job, we need the practice, guys. We haven't gone on a mission together in far too long, and I don't want us getting rusty." Leo said without a trace of sympathy, reaching down to help his youngest brother up to his feet. He glanced over to the grumbling intellectual member of the group. "So, Donnie, where's this part you were looking for? I'm not familiar with this section of the city."

Donnie was wiping water off the screen of his tPhone. "You guys are just lucky I've waterproofed everything." he groused. He consulted the glowing screen, then straightened up, pointing up to the top of the hill. "The junkyard we're looking for should be up there. My sources say that a genuine astronmic conversion amplifier was dumped there, and if so, we need to find it! Those things were discontinued years ago, and are extremely difficult to find!"

"Man, we're going to get so much sweet swag tonight!" Mikey chortled gleefully. "I'm so ready! I even brought my Bag of Ultimate Holding +1, dawgs!" He held up a well worn and patched Hello Kitty backpack.

"Mikey, if you find anything interesting, of course you can keep it, but remember, the priority is to get Donnie that... um... astrometer converter thing." Leo reminded him.

"An astronmic conversion amplifier." Donnie corrected him.

"Blah, blah. Dig in trash, complete mission, get the rest of the night off." Raph started pushing Donnie up towards the hill. "Got it. Let's go."

"Wait for me!" Mikey scrambled up after them. He smacked a handful of mud on the back of Raph's head as he ran past him, and cackled with glee as Raph cursed at him and took off in hot pursuit, promising much bodily harm in rather creative terms.

Leo sighed, and followed the bickering brothers. He was their leader and now their sensei, but sometimes he felt like he was trying to herd cats. With most of their enemies defeated or gone, the brothers seemed to be wandering life without a purpose now. He was doing his best to keep everything and everybody together, but sometimes it seemed like an impossible task. He wondered what Master Splinter would've done with his brothers. He dearly missed his father, especially on nights like this. He had been such a pillar of wisdom and strength, and if he were still alive, he would most certainly be doing a much better job keeping the family in order then Leo himself was doing.

Leo shook his head and gave an extra spurt of speed to try and catch up. Letting himself go down that line of thought was never a good idea. All he could do, and all Master Splinter would've wanted of him, was to do the best that Leonardo could do. To be himself, and be the best he could be.

That was all he could offer his brothers, and they deserved nothing less.

* * *

"Remember!" Donnie explained as they walked amongst mountains of trash, trying to visually trace the shape of the item they were looking for in the air for them. "It's about the size of a bread box, it's red, and it'll have the words 'Astronmic Conversion Amplifier' written on the side."

"Yeah, yeah, got it." Raph waved him off, wandering off towards the corner of the junkyard that seemed to hold some interesting looking old muscle cars.

"Mikey, don't stick your head in there!" Leo scolded the youngest brother, pulling the filthy looking bucket off of his head. "You don't know where that's been or what was in it!"

A piece of paper stuck to Mikey's face, and he pulled it off, studying it for a second, before his light blue eyes brightened even further. "Dude! Leo! Look! Jackpot!" He leapt onto Leo's shell, wrapping his arms around his older brother's shoulders to hold the advertisement right in front of his face. "See! Papa Antonio's Pizza is having a limited edition pizza, the S'more Galore! And there's a coupon for it! Can we stop and get some after this?! Please? Please?!"

Leo sighed and pulled the paper out of Mikey's hands, holding it at a more acceptable reading distance then half an inch from his snout. "Mikey, this is dated over five years old. I think that it's probably expired by now."

"Aw. I could really go for a nice, hot slice of pizza right now." Mikey grabbed the paper back, looking at it mournfully, before licking the picture of the pizza.

"Stop that!" Leo scolded him, snatching the paper away. "We'll get some pizza later! Stop trying to test your immune system like that!" He sighed, then glanced up at Donnie. "If you help me keep an eye on Mikey, I'll go ahead and search the north eastern corner then, I guess."

Donnie nodded absently, scanning the area. "Thanks, Leo. Good luck. I really appreciate you guys helping me with this."

* * *

Donnie's brow beaded with sweat as he heaved, trying to flip the old, broken fridge over. Normally he wouldn't have bothered moving something so heavy and imbedded, but he had seen a flash of hopeful red underneath, and decided it was worth a look.

"Lift with the knees, not with the shell! And... here... it... goes...!" he huffed, and the fridge toppled over and slid down the hill of trash a few feet. "Yes!" Donnie scrambled over to the red object, then sighed in disappointment when he found an actual red breadbox. Not the electronic goody he was hoping for. He hoped that the others were having a bit more luck, he was practically salivating over the possibilities if he owns such an artifact as a rare astronmic conversion amplifier. Dependable Leo would be thorough in his search, of course. Raph, as much as he tried to act otherwise, would honestly keep an eye out for it. For all his bluster, the tough turtle did look out for his family. Mikey... well... if past experience had taught Donnie anything, it was that somehow, against all logic, it would be Mikey who would trip over it accidentally and find it without realizing it.

Speaking of the youngest, he probably should go check and make sure that he wasn't trying to eat the scraps out of a moldy old pizza box. He mentally pinpointed the location he had last heard the boisterous ninja at, and took a step in that direction.

"Um, guys?!" Mikey's voice called out, not his usual cheerful tone, but one filled with terror, fear, and the beginning of panic.

Donnie's heart froze for a second. Mikey never used that voice unless something was terribly wrong! He broke into a run, hurdling the trash barrier easily. "Mikey! What's wrong?! Are you o... Oh... Oh no..." he said with widening eyes as he found his youngest brother on the other side of a large mound of trash, close to a pool of foul looking water.

Mikey was kneeling in the mud by a pile of filthy golden fur. It was a dog, a golden retriever by the looks of it, wheezing and gasping for air. He looked up at Donnie with tear filled eyes. "Donnie! I found him like this! I think he's sick, dude!"

Cursing under his breath, Donnie quickly knelt down by the poor dog, looking it over with the practiced eye of a medical veteran. He quickly noticed the labored breathing, the stiffened muscles, and the glassy, unfocused eyes. This dog had probably ingested something poisonous. He noticed the liquid staining the fur on around the dog's legs and muzzle had an odd odor, and glanced up at the nearby pool of water.

"Mikey, get back!" He snapped, scooping up the dog and jumping back.

Mikey, confused, but seeing his older brother retreat, quickly followed.

"Those chemicals!" Donnie hissed angrily, gesturing towards several large rusty drums oozing a foul liquid into the water. "It's illegal to dump those! They're highly toxic, and could and will contaminate the whole area if not cleaned up!"

"Is that why the dog is so sick?" Mikey looked worried. "You can help him, can't you?! We can't just let him die!"

Donnie felt his breath hitch. There was no time for him to get back to the lab, and try to find a solution to counteract this poisoning. The dog would probably die before then. But maybe...

"Mikey, go get Leo! Now!"

He looked up, but Mikey was already gone, disappearing in the way only a trained ninja could.

Donnie carefully lay the whimpering dog down on a reasonably clean and flat section of ground and gave it a gentle pat. "Hang on, buddy. Help is coming." He noticed a collar in the fur around the dog's neck, and gently traced it down to find some metal tags and the broken end of a leash attached. He felt his heart sink further. This was somebody's pet. He was watching somebody's pet dog die before his eyes.

"Donnie!" He heard Leo's voice, and turned as the blue masked leader appeared next to him, Mikey close behind.

"Leo!" Donnie gasped, moving to the side to let his older brother assess the situation. "It's a poisonous toxin from a chemical leak. There's no time to get him back to the lair. The healing mantra's you used on us that one time for Karai's poison. Will they work here?"

Leo crouched down next to the dog, gently brushing back the filthy golden fur as he took a look. He gave a curt nod. "I can try."

Donnie took a step back, giving Leo plenty of room to work. The blue masked turtle settled into position, tucking his heels under him as he knelt. He took a deep calming breath, held out his hands in front of him, closed his eyes, and then began the chant, twisting his fingers into the various forms with each syllable. "Rin... Pyo... Toh... Sha... Kai... Jin... Retsu... Zai... Zen..." And then he repeated it, this time with more intensity.

Mikey clung to Donnie's arm, watching with large, doe-like eyes. Donnie gave him a comforting pat. "It's going to be okay, Mikey."

"Guys, what's going on? Is everybody okay?" Raph had noticed the commotion, and joined them. "Oh... fuck..." he breathed as he noticed the dog. "What's wrong with it?!"

"A very dangerous chemical spill over there." Donnie gestured towards the area the contaminated pool was located in. "And don't swear, Raph."

"But don't worry, Raph. Donnie says it'll be okay." Mikey said with conviction, hugging Donnie's arm even tighter. "Leo can heal him."

Raph put a hand on Mikey's head. "Of course, little brother. Leo's got this, no problem." he said in a serious voice.

Some beads of sweat were forming on Leo's forehead, and it was almost as if he had strain to push each syllable out now, the fourth repeat of the mantras. "Rin...! Pyo...! Toh...! Sha...! Kai...! Jin...! _Retsu...! Zai...!_ _ **Zen!**_ _"_

With a fierce enunciation of the last phrase, Leo's eyes snapped open, and he clapped his hands onto the dog's panting side. A faint glow transferred from his palms to envelope the limp form, and then dissipated. The sound of the dog's hoarse breathing stopped, and Leo exhaled and sat back on his heels.

The other three turtles cautiously leaned forward, searching for any signs of life in the limp bundle of golden fur on the ground.

Soft brown eyes blinked open, and then the dog lifted its head up and looked around, obviously disorientated and confused.

"He's okay!" Mikey squealed, leaping forward to throw his arms around the dog. The dog gave a wag of its tail and woofed, licking Mikey's face.

Raph offered a hand down to Leo, pulling him up to a standing position, then gave him a pat on the arm. "You did good, brother."

Leo gave him a weary grin. "Thanks, Raph. That was a tough one. I'm glad it worked."

Mikey laughed as the dog nuzzled his orange mask, skewing it at an odd angle so he had to adjust it back to see. "Can we keep him, guys?! I promise I'll take care of him and take him for walks and clean up after him!"

"Mikey, you don't even do those things for yourself." Raph pointed out. "A dog's a big responsibility."

"Besides, I think he already has an owner." Donnie knelt down besides Mikey and the now alert dog. "I saw some name tags on his collar. We should really get him back to his owners. I bet they're worried sick."

Mikey peered through the fur. "Huh. His name is Rouseby Woof." He patted the dog on the head. "Awesome name, dude!"

"Is there a phone number?" Leo asked him.

Donnie read the tags. "Yes, there is. Should I give them a call?"

Leo shook his head. "Not at the moment. First I want you to call the proper authorities and let them know about that chemical spill. If it's as dangerous as you say, we need to make sure that somebody knows to clean it up. Mikey, you and I are going to give the dog a good bath back at the lair, not only is he filthy, we don't want any of those chemicals to linger in his fur and get him or his owner sick later. Raph, get a hold of April and Casey, and see if they can meet up with us and help get the dog home afterwards. I'm sure two humans returning the dog will be a lot less complicated then four mutant turtles."

"Figures." Raph scoffed. "We do all the work, the humans will get all the credit."

"Hey, we're ninja, remember." Leo gave him a crooked smile. "We don't want the attention even if we weren't in danger of getting maced and tased by every civilian that we save."

"You hear that, Rouseby Woof?" Mikey said cheerfully, giving the dog a playful rub between the ears. "We're going to get you squeaky clean, I'm going to put a rockingly awesome bow so you look so fly for your peoples, and I'm even going to give you the grand tour of the lair! I'll show you all the best places that have the best smells!" He winked and leaned in secretively. "Spoilers, it's all my favorite pizza stains. Ooh, and I'll have to introduce you to Ice Cream Kitty!"

"Probably not a good idea, Mikey. I think Ice Cream Kitty needs to stay far away from Mr Woof." Leo shook his head. He turned apologetically to the tallest turtle. "Sorry Donnie, I know you really wanted that breadbox sized converter thing, but I think we need to head back. The sooner we get this guy home, the... better..." Leo trailed off, looking hard off into the darkness.

"Leo?" Donnie asked.

Leo shook his head. "Sorry, I could've sworn I felt someone watching us." He continued looking off in the distance suspiciously. "But it might've been nothing."

The other three glanced in the direction he was looking.

"I don't see anything." Raph frowned.

Leo shrugged. "Like I said, it's probably nothing." He tried to turn his attention back to the matter at hand. "As I was saying, we should get back to the lair. Our new friend has been through a lot, and shouldn't exert himself too much at the moment. Mikey, can you carry our furry guest back to the lair, or should we have Raph do the honors?"

"Wait, why me?" Raph protested.

"Because you shoved me into the pond earlier." Leo gave a smirk.

"Well, I am already carrying my Bag of Ultimate Holding +1, so I'll have to let Raph bear the burden." Mikey frowned. "Just be careful with him, dude."

"Oh, you guys suck." Raph grumbled as he bent down and hoisted the dog up. Despite his very vocal grouching, he was extremely gentle, though he did sputter and curse quite a bit as the golden retriever kept trying to lick his face.

They traveled the distance down the hill from the junkyard to the pond below, heading towards the culvert that would take them back into the sewers and their home.

"It's a shame really." Donnie mused, pausing to look down at the picturesque natural scene below from the culvert's lip. "There's enough chemicals up there to seep all the way down here. If left unchecked long enough, it'll kill everything in this pond."

"Well, we'll just make sure that it doesn't reach that point." Leo reassured him, then nodded his head towards the tunnels. "Come on, guys. Let's get this dog home."

They turned and walked away, disappearing into the darkness.

* * *

None of them noticed the very inhuman form watching them disappear from a tree further up the hill, close to the junkyard.

The creature watched the culvert for a while, staring into the still darkness. Then it leapt into junkyard and began searching the ground until it found what it was looking for.

Leonardo's footprint in the wet mud.

It traced the three toed print carefully with one clawed hand, and narrowed its diamond black eyes. Then it was gone, disappearing into the night.

* * *

 **Author's Notes:**

_The dog, in case you're wondering/worried, does not play a big part in this story. He's just there to set some things up and allow me to make references to one of my favorite novels of all time._


	2. Failure to Communicate

"Are you sure this is the right address?" Mikey peered over the lip of the roof they were on at the building across the street.

"Yes, Mikey, I'm sure. This is the address April gave us. The dog's owners live in one of the apartments in this building." Raph answered, bored. "And if you ask me again, I'm going to march you across the street and implant your face against the number plate on the building so you can see for yourself."

"Look, Mikey." Leo knelt down next to him and smiled at him reassuringly as he directed Mikey's attention down towards a man and two children sitting anxiously on the steps, constantly peering up and down the streets. "I bet those humans there are Rousby's owners that April had called. The kids are up awfully late otherwise. I bet after April called him, the dad woke the kids up, just so they'll be really happy once April and Casey walk around that corner."

"Oh, I bet you're right Leo!" Mikey wiggled with excitement, watching the humans' faces intently. "I hope they like the bow I picked out!"

"April and Casey should be here by now." Donnie frowned, glancing at his phone and worrying. "You don't suppose the dog got away from them, do you? I mean, he's obviously already broken one leash before. I knew I should gone with a reinforced material for the new leash instead of that store bought one Casey said he had."

"Donnie, stop worrying. That's my job." Leo stood up and punched the taller turtle's arm playfully. "I'm sure they'll be here any minute."

As if on cue, the kids gave a cry of delight as April, Casey, and a freshly washed golden retriever sporting a rather overly large glittery green bow stepped around the corner.

"Rousby Woof! You came home!"

The turtles could hear the kids' overjoyed cry from even their rooftop perch, and Rousby Woof barked excitedly, yanking Casey along to plow into them. The father, sporting a grin that almost reached from one ear to another, jogged up to join his two children, now rolling on the ground with the ecstatic dog who's tail seemed to be a blur. He quickly turned to April and Casey, and was obviously thanking them profusely, though the turtles couldn't hear what he was saying.

"Dawwwww." Mikey gushed, chin in his eyes and watching the scene unfold with a huge grin on his face.

Leo couldn't help the smile growing on his face as well. Sometimes they saved the world from an alien invasion. Sometimes they just got a lost dog home to his humans. And both types of victories felt immensely gratifying. He put his hands on his hips, proud of his team, and gave his best 'Captain Ryan' voice. "Turtles? We did good today."

"Yeah. Guess it wasn't a total waste of time after all." Raph was leaning against a wall, but a grin was on his face as well.

"And I made sure the official I spoke with was aware of just how high a priority it was to clean up that chemical spill. He assured me it would be looked into right away." Donnie nodded. "I would say that tonight was a positive. Even if we didn't get my astronmic conversion amplifier." he sighed with a tinge of regret in his voice.

"Dude, even if we didn't find your thing, I got myself plenty of awesome swag!" Mikey said enthusiastically, scrambling over to his stuffed Hello Kitty bag. "Did you guys want to see?!"

Leo chuckled and walked over to take a seat next to him. "Alright then, Mikey, show us what you got."

Mikey dove into his bag happily, pulling out various items, and explaining his reasoning for each item. Some old frisbees for the frisbee disk course he wanted to set up in the sewer, a snowglobe of the Statue of Liberty so he could take the statue out and use it in the diorama of the Godzilla scene he was recreating, some metal cogs that he thought would come in handy at some point for Donnie, an old checkered tablecloth that he was going to use for a super secret sewing project that he couldn't reveal just yet (which made all three of his brothers nervous), some rope, a couple of forks and spoons with unusual patterns on them, a rubber toy fish that squeaked when you squeezed it, and, a red contraption about the size of a breadbox that had the words 'Astronmic Conversion Amplifier' on the side.

"Mikey!" Donnie half gasped, half squeaked as he scooped up the device. "My astronmic conversion amplifier! You found it!"

"Ooooh!" Mikey's eyes lit up. "So THAT's what we were looking for! Ha!" He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "And I just thought it would be a good doorstop for my bedroom door!"

"You... you would use a astronmic conversion amplifier as a doorstop?!" Donnie looked horrified, and sputtered. "Do you... do you even know what it is?! How valuable it is? How long I have wanted one?!" He clutched the red box close to his plastron and pet it lovingly. "With this baby, I'll be able to accurately double the effectiveness of my subsonic power couplings!"

"Uh huh, uh huh, so that's interesting..." Mikey obviously wasn't interested at all.

"So, Mikey, did you know that was what Donnie was looking for, or did you actually stuff something random in your bag that turned out to be the right item?" Raph frowned.

"To be honest, I kind of tuned Donnie out when he was talking about it." Mikey admitted cheerfully, putting his treasures back into his bag. "I just thought the thing looked cool."

Leo shook his head in disbelief. Was his youngest brother really as clueless as he acted, or did he just pretend because he got a huge kick out of watching his brothers panic constantly over his seemingly mindless decisions? Seeing how amused Mikey seemed to get watching them freak out, Leo often found himself wondering.

Noticing that Casey and April seemed to be saying their goodbyes, and the human family, now with their dog once more, were heading back inside, Leo stood up, brushing himself off.

"Alright, turtles. I think we're done here, but it's still pretty early in the night. What do you say we get a good training run across the rooftops in?"

"Maybe another night, Leo." Donnie said absently, still looking over his new toy. "I need to get back to my lab, hook this up to my computer, and see how this baby runs. It looks like it's in excellent condition, but I might need to make a few tweaks to it before I can really start getting the power boost I'm looking for. Ooh!" His eyes sparkled as he thought of something. "I should ask April if she would be willing to help!"

Raph thumbed down towards the humans below. "Me and Casey were going to hit the rink together for a bit tonight. He wanted to work on his hockey practice and his fighting skills." Raph gave a wicked grin and slammed his fists together. "I figured I'd help him out with both."

"Mikey?" Leo turned towards the youngest hopefully.

"'Ultimate Titan City Rampage', brah!" Mikey stuck his tongue out playfully and flashed the 'hang loose' hand sign. "Don't think I've forgotten about that sweet cellophane plastic still waiting to be ripped off the case."

Leo frowned. "Aw, come on, guys. We haven't done a rooftop run, all four of us together, in over a week now. We need to keep in shape!"

Raph frowned. "Is that an order, mighty Sensei?"

While he kept his normal, sarcastic tone, there was a slight undercurrent of tenseness in his voice. While Raph had long ago accepted and followed Leo as a leader, Leo as sensei was still sensitive territory for them all at the moment. Leo had been trying to walk that tightrope carefully, and had built up enough authority to know that if he pushed it tonight, they would reluctantly obey, but they would also greatly resent it. His brothers were keeping up with their training fairly well, and he was not going to make a scene and force them to drop their plans just because he missed running with them.

Leo sighed. "No. I'm not ordering you guys as your Sensei, Raph. I plan on taking that run regardless, and I was just hoping for some company." He arched an arm over his head and pulled it a few times, stretching the muscles. "But as your leader, I will give the following orders; Raph, make sure you and Casey don't get into too much trouble. Donnie, I know how you get when you're looking at a new toy that way, please keep a fire extinguisher nearby. Mikey, don't sit too close to the tv, don't eat too much junk food, and I am making sure you take a short break when I get back, just so you're warned."

Mikey narrowed his baby blue eyes in challenge. "You'll have to pry the controller from my hands with a crowbar, big bro."

"I'll figure out a way. Don't doubt that." Leo smirked as he finished stretching, then his face grew a little more serious. "See you guys back in the lair later, then. Stay in the shadows, guys, and stay safe."

"You too, Leo." Raph nodded, his cocky smile relaxed and friendly once more as he stood up and cracked his knuckles. "I'm off to go get Casey."

"And I have GOT to show April this!" Donnie was still turning his new gadget over in his hands, only half paying attention to everybody else. "Later, Leo!"

Leo nodded, smiled at them, and then he was off running, disappearing over a roof.

* * *

Over the railing, one, two, three steps over the roof, a leap off the edge and a flip to align his body to the perfect angle required. His foot tapped the brick wall, knees coiling and snapping forward to powerfully rocket him in the new direction, between two buildings. Bounce, bounce, lightly from wall to wall, gaining height, twisting his body about to grab a railing, legs swinging up and over his body, arms straightened, muscles working perfectly to propel himself up into the air, knees tucked in for a somersault, landing lightly on the next rooftop, and then with not even a scrap of the gravel below his feet, he pushes forward again, as silent as a shadow as he flew across the buildings.

Leo felt his breath expand his lungs every time he inhaled, and he reveled in the feeling of his strong muscles working in powerful harmony, his body being honed to perfection, a living, dangerous weapon able to respond and react to whatever task he asked of it.

He couldn't understand why his brothers didn't find training as exhilarating as he did.

Grabbing the metal railing of a ladder on a wooden water tower, he paused and hung there for a moment, catching his breath and enjoying the feeling of the cool night wind against his green scaled skin. Even with the ever present sounds of the city whirring and honking in the background, it still felt so quiet and peaceful up here. Then his face grew a little wistful. Maybe a little too quiet lately. It was times like this, sitting up here by himself on a rooftop in an unfamiliar part of the city, that he realized how lonely it could be.

His third eyelid slid over his sapphire blue eyes, giving his eyes that now rather infamous white, pupil-less glare, dangerous and feral.

Of course, being alone wasn't always so bad.

Now the question was, how did he let this scenario play out? Did he keep on pretending he wasn't aware, and try to turn the tables on whoever was shadowing him? Ambush the ambusher, so to speak? Or did he call them out and confront them?

He had wondered at first if it had been one or more of his brothers. Maybe they had a change of heart, and decided to test his skills with some impromptu ninja practice. Or maybe, he had hoped more then he'd admit, Karai decided to come out to play, something she hadn't done in ages.

But he since had ruled all that out. Whoever it was that was following him, it was not Karai, nor any of his brothers. In fact, it didn't move like at all like a ninja, which made the fact that he was having so much trouble sensing anything about it all that more frustrating.

It's unnatural abilities to blend into the shadows was one of the reasons he was reluctant to try to double back and sneak up on it himself. He had no small opinion of himself as a ninja, but there were just too many unknown variables here. There was no guarantee he could even succeed at such an attempt, or what he would find if he did. He briefly considered calling his brothers, but if he were honest with himself at the moment, he had absolutely nothing to go on except his sixth sense telling him that he was being skillfully shadowed. His brothers wouldn't be entirely thrilled to get pulled away for an emergency call with no evidence that there actually was an emergency.

No, he finally decided. He couldn't run away from whoever this was all night, but he, obviously, couldn't head home until the situation was dealt with. His best course of action would be to end to this game on his terms, and see how this all played out.

Not wanting to give away the fact that he was alerted to his stalker's presence just yet, he casually stretched, shook, then took off running again, this time heading towards the junkyard on the hill they had been at earlier. There would be a good place to make a stand, he had a variety of options if things went bad. The junkyard could make for a strategic battleground if the worst should happen, it was close to a sewer opening if he found the need to take cover there, or, if things went really, really bad, he could turn and run back into the city buildings if a flat out 'tactical retreat' at top speed turned out to be the best option.

He leapt off the final building, swung around to grab the fire escape, and gracefully slid down the metal ladder rails. One leap took him to the top of the chain link fence surrounding the junk yard, and then he was running along top of it, moving along the thin metal bar as easily as if it were a stroll down a street. There was a large tree up ahead, and he launched off the fence to land in one of the branches.

There, hidden in the shadow of the leaves, he crouched, waiting and watching.

A gust of wind blew some old papers and a plastic bag around in a whirl, and down by the pond, he could hear the bullfrog starting its croak once more.

It was quiet, and every indication seemed to point to the fact that he was the only one out here.

He didn't feel foolish, though. He trusted his instincts.

There. A rustle of dead leaves that wasn't caused by the wind. A whisper of a shadow that didn't quite match the flickering branches in the street light.

Leo silently drew a sword, white eyes narrowed.

And then the creature stepped out of the shadows into the light, and Leo gripped his sword even tighter, his breath hitching.

For as silent and stealthy as that thing had been, it was huge, probably almost seven feet tall, and it was terrifying. Eight large spindly legs extended from the thick, bulbous spider body, and while it had a rather humanoid torso with a pair of arms with four-fingered hands, bringing its limb count up to a staggering ten, it's features were far from human, with its face bearing large mandibles in place of a mouth, and black, multi-faceted eyes that glittered like polished gemstone in the light. Its exoskeleton was a charcoal grey, and its torso was draped in a black and grey cloth sash, pinned in place by a metal clasp.

Clothing. That meant that it was probably from an intelligent race. Leo frowned as he studied it from his sheltered perch. It didn't look like a mutant, at least any that he and his brother had come across. An alien, perhaps? The closest thing he could think of to describe it was a drider, the spidery hybrid creatures from the fantasy adventure novels that they had collected over the years in their lair.

The drider, for Leo wasn't sure what else to call it, stepped cautiously closer to the tree, but paused a fair distance away, as if unsure what to do next. It finally crossed its arms over his chest and gave a slight bow.

Leo watched it for a moment. Obviously, it knew he was up here, and it hadn't made any hostile movements so far. In fact, everything seemed to indicate that the creature desired a peaceful interaction. Sure, the gigantic spider creature looked terrifying and scary, but how many humans thought that about him and his brothers at first glance? Was it really fair of him to think of it as a monster just based on its looks, considering the circumstances of his own family? Leo debated his options for a moment or two, then sheathed his sword and cautiously dropped from the tree. With a blink, his nictitating membrane slid back in his eyes, revealing the sapphire blue irises once again, and he watched the drider warily, but politely returned the bow.

There was a moment of silence as they stood there. Leo couldn't read the other creature's emotions with those bright black glittering eyes, and it unnerved him a little.

Finally, he spoke up. "Who are you? Why are you following me?"

The drider tilted its head, then shook it and began chittering in some insect-like language that Leo couldn't begin to understand or mimic.

"Um, okay?" Leo's muscles were tensed and ready to move quickly if needed. He tried to keep his tone calm and neutral. "I'll be honest here, I can't understand anything you're saying. Can you understand me?"

The drider looked at him, and Leo thought he could detect some uncertainty in the creature's features.

"Do... you... need... help?" Leo enunciated each word slowly and carefully.

The drider looked undecided for a moment, then sighed with obvious frustration. Leo got the feeling that it couldn't understand him any more the he could understand it. The creature took a step towards him, and he tensed and put a hand up on a sword hilt. Seeing him react so negatively to its advance, it stopped, holding up its hands in front of it and chittering again in that language. It shook its head while pointing at Leo's swords, and then gestured towards Leo, then itself, and then down toward the pond at the base of the hill they were on.

Leo frowned, trying to figure out what the creature wanted. Finally, he shook his head. It was time to call his brothers. Maybe Donnie could make some sense of this. Mikey wouldn't be a bad idea either, his youngest brother seemed to have a way of connecting with large, terrifying creatures. Raph... Well... Hm. There were few that could match his hot headed brother in battle, but this situation involved diplomacy and a gigantic creepy crawly. Two of Raph's weaknesses. Maybe Raph could be convinced to bring up the Shellraiser? From a distance?

But as Leo reached down towards his belt towards the tPhone, the drider tensed up and hissed. At this aggressive sound, Leo's hand instead shot up to his sword hilt again, and he took a step back, ready to draw the steel at any second.

The drider shook its head emphatically, then once again pointed at Leo, itself, then down by the pond, though this time more insistently.

"You want me to go with you somewhere." Leo eyes widened as he realized what the drider was trying to tell him. Then he narrowed his eyes stubbornly and clenched his jaw, his hand still ready on the sword hilt. "Well, sorry, but I'm not going anywhere without my brothers. If you want me to go somewhere, then you let me get them and we'll discuss it with them."

The drider's black diamond eyes seemed to narrow with dangerous determination, and once again, it pointed at Leo, then itself, then down the hill. And this time Leo got the impression that this was not simply a request, but a non-negotiable demand.

"No." Leo said flatly, drawing his sword, eyes turning white once more.

* * *

Down by the pond at the bottom of the hill, the bullfrog continued its song, and a cool night breeze rustled through the cattails, causing them to bob and wave in the laziest of dances. The water lapped up against the muddy landing, and a few insects buzzed around each other, before darting off somewhere in the night.

At the edge of the water, a small pond turtle slowly made its way across the thick mixture of mud and clay, leaving small footprints in the soggy clay that quicky filled with minute pools of water as it dragged itself up towards the long weeds that grew thick here. A broad leaf dangled from the small grassy bank, waving temptingly in the breeze. The small turtle eyed the leaf hungrily, then slowly stretched out it's neck, extending from its shell to take a bite of the enticing greenery.

 _WHOMP!_

Leo grunted as he was slammed down hard on his shell into the mud, inches from the pond water, with the drider pinning him from above. The impact was enough to knock his sword out of his grasp. Oh, god, this thing was so much faster and stronger then he had expected! And legs! There were so many legs to keep track of!

It hissed at him as it pinned his arms down in the mud with two of said limbs, and Leo's eyes widened in horror as the drider's hands went down to its sash, pulling out two wickedly sharp looking knives and deftly plunging them down toward's Leo's chest! Leo quickly calculated its center of balance and kicked up towards its thorax, hoping to throw it off, but already realizing that he wouldn't be able to move fast enough to prevent the knives from striking first.

There was a harsh tearing noise, but surprisingly no pain, then Leo's kick connected with perfect accuracy, sending the drider teetering then tumbling. But instead of getting knocked off of him, the drider twisted to grab him by the plastron as it tucked its body skillfully to turn the fall into a graceful roll. As Leo was pulled along and out of the mud, he felt his sword belt and gear slide off, left behind in the mud where he had been slammed.

The drider had used its knives not to hurt him, but to cut the leather straps of his gear, Leo realized with cold shock. His remaining sword, his shurikens, smoke bombs, grappling hook, tPhone, everything. It was all laying back there in the mud! With one move, he had been almost completely disarmed!

Leo gave a grunt as their roll ended up with him pinned plastron down underneath the drider in the grass, the creature's knives deftly sheathed once more. Well, it seemed like it wasn't trying to kill him. That was good. Leo couldn't understand the stream of hisses and clicks, but if he had to guess, he'd bet the spider creature was muttering curses at him, so it obviously wasn't happy about how the situation was playing out. It grabbed his arms, forcing them behind his back, and began binding his hands with some sort of lightweight, silky rope. Leo struggled and cursed, but couldn't get free.

"TPhone! Activate the emergency distress signal!" he snapped out, and felt a twang of gratification as he noticed a red light start blinking from his belt laying down by the water. If he got out of this, he would have to remember to thank Donnie for programming in the voice command features. He could faintly hear pulses of buzzing down there, and knew that it was his silenced tPhone vibrating instead of ringing, his brothers' attempts at calling him.

His brothers would get here as fast as they could. He just needed to hang on until then.

The drider hissed, and quickly plucked Leo up off the ground as if he were nothing more then a toy, backing away from the pond and eyeing the buzzing belt anxiously. Obviously, it had no idea what the tPhone was or what it's purpose was, and it seemed almost afraid that it might explode or something.

It carried Leo to what it obviously considered a safe distance, then put the bound turtle down, still eyeing the tPhone suspiciously. After a moment, the drider shook its head, then turned to examine Leo. Leo glared right back at him.

All of the turtles reacted differently to being captured by the enemy. Donnie would try streams of logic and reason on his captors as to why this was all unnecessary and why there could be a peaceful resolution to this, while his brilliant mind spun up elaborate ways to escape. Mikey would be nervously chatting non stop over the most random of subjects, a tactic that usually either annoyed or confused the captor enough that it was surprisingly effective. And, of course, Raph would've been cursing and threatening to the point that even a hardened old pirate would've blanched at the language used.

But Leo? Leo grew silent and glared.

His silent treatment had a few strategies behind it. First and foremost in Leo's reasoning, and so he told his brothers, it was so that when he did escape, the captor would be less likely to notice the sudden absence of noise from their prisoner. And then there was the simple fact that Leo didn't want to give his enemy any information whatsoever, even the satisfaction in knowing just how upset he really was. But probably the main reason, one he probably wouldn't even admit to himself, was that being captured basically caused Leo to fall into a full fledged sulking fit. Being captured usually signaled failure, and he hated to fail at anything.

To make matters all the more aggravating, as the breeze blew past them, he realized that his face felt strangely naked, and then realized with a start that, besides his gear, he had somehow he had lost his mask as well. It must had gotten caught and ripped off during the struggle, though by the drider or a piece of bramble that they had been rolling through, he had no idea. The thought of it added more fuel to the smoldering flames, though. The mask was a symbol to him and his brothers, first given to them when their father had officially graduated them to full fledged ninjas. It was just a strip of cloth, admittably often replaced, but Leo felt like it also held a bit of his identity. Losing that was almost as distressing to him as losing his swords.

The drider's shoulder's drooped a little when he looked down at the seething turtle, and it put a hand on his shoulder as it knelt down, chittering at him. Leo waited until its face got close enough, then suddenly he snapped his now-bare head forward, right into the creature's face between the eyes.

The drider cried out in pain at the crunching headbutt, stumbling back, and Leo rolled away up to his knees, struggling against his bonds as he tried to lunge away. The drider recovered quickly, though, and grabbed Leo by the shell, ending the last ditch escape attempt by hoisting him up like a doll in air in front of it and snarling at him, a trickle of black blood dripping down its face.

It quickly took a deep breath and regain its composure, then growled at Leo as it tucked him under one arm and got up to its eight feet. He cursed inwardly at being carried like a belligerent toddler, and kicked out at the drider, but realized quickly that he was unable to get any purchase or leverage in this position, and thus grudgingly went limp, saving his energy for when he actually would have an opportunity to use it.

Securely bound and helpless to do anything, Leo hoped his brothers could track them as the drider carried him back down the hill, skirting widely around the broken belt laying in the mud with the still-vibrating tPhone, and then, with eight spider legs, easily clambored up into the drain pipe with its prisoner under arm. The drider ducked as it crawled into the culvert, and then they both disappeared into the inky blackness of the sewers.

* * *

Author Notes:

My apologies for the lame antagonist. If we're lucky, this is the last we'll ever see of him! I'm sure Leo's fine. Also, my apologies for any geographical errors. I know next to nothing about actual New York, so I make a lot of stuff up. It'll happen a lot throughout this story. And finally, apologies to all Leo fans out there on how easily he got stomped. Seriously, I loves me some badass ninja turtles, Leo especially. Today just wasn't his day

Hm. Probably also should mention that Rouseby Woof is an homage to one of my favorite novels, and not actually a name I came up with. And this will probably be the last we'll ever see of him! Don't worry, he lives happily ever after, I'm sure.


	3. Saving a Brother

"He isn't answering his tPhone! Why isn't he answering his tPhone, Donnie?!" Raph's voice sounded panicked when Donnie patched him through the line.

"I don't know, Raph! You need to calm down!" Donnie snapped at him, buckling himself in the driver's seat and reaching over to flip several switches on the Shellraiser. "April, Mikey, and I are just getting strapped into the Shellraiser now, we'll be at his ping location in fifteen minutes. How close are you and Casey?"

"We're only a few minutes away now." Raph panted. "The signal is coming from close to that junkyard we were at earlier. We weren't that far away to begin with."

"Good." Donnie nodded, flipping the final switch, and the Shellraiser hummed to life. "See what the situation is, and help Leo if he needs it. Call us with an update if you can, we'll be there as soon as possible." He pushed the armored vehicle into gear, and with a roar, it was off down the tunnel.

"Leo's going to be okay, isn't he?" Mikey asked from his station in the back, his normally childish face serious with worry.

"Of course he is. He's Leo, isn't he?" April said, trying to sound convincing as she twisted around in the passenger seat next to Donnie to look back at the youngest turtle.

"There shouldn't be anything out on the streets that should cause Leo of all people trouble!" Donnie worried fretfully. He reached up and flipped another switch and the tunnel ceiling open up into a ramp, allowing them to roar up onto the streets above. "With Shredder's goons all taken care of, the Foot under Karai's control, and the Kraang gone, the city has been fairly quiet for months!"

"Maybe it's not trouble, like fighting trouble." April theorized as they raced down the street. She held on to the dashboard, and her ponytail flew about as they skidded around a tight corner. "Maybe its something as simple as a building ledge was crumbling more then he expected, and he took a tumble and injured himself?"

"Leo? Make a mistake like that? No way!" Mikey said adamantly. He threw up his hands. "And you know my bro! Even if he broke all four limbs, he'd probably drag himself all the way home by his chin rather then admit it." He bit his lip worriedly, then let his eyes wander to the map screen, staring at the blinking dot that represented the location of the signal.

"Mikey, don't worry, Leo's going to be fine! Raph and Casey are almost there, and those two are going to find him." April tried to reassure him. "And you know how Raph and Casey are, they like to hog all the fun! I bet they'll already have the problem taken care of by the time we get there, and we'll miss out on all the excitement."

"Yeah..." Mikey tried to sound cheerful, but failed. "Man, are we ever going to tease Leo about it later, though." He was quiet for a second, then he reached down and picked up his tPhone again. "I'm going to try calling Leo again. Just to be sure."

Donnie's hands were gripping the steering wheel tighter then usual as they roared down the streets.

Why wasn't Leo answering his tPhone?!

* * *

"Leo!" Casey called, walking down the hill and twisting about, looking for the eldest turtle. "Leo, are you here? It's us!"

"Come on, Casey." Raph glanced down at his own, blinking cell phone. "The tPhone's signal's coming from down there, close to th' sewer entrance."

"I don't see or hear anything, Raph." Casey flipped up his hockey mask, looking concerned. "If Leo's in trouble, shouldn't we be hearing a fight, or him calling out or something?"

Raph's mouth tightened. "I should'a never let him go out alone tonight. He was getting funny feelings about being watched earlier." He glanced at his phone again as they approached the pond. "We're getting close. Keep your eyes and ears peeled."

They both carefully approached the pond. By now, it was well into the night, and the darkness was deep and hard to peer through. There was no sound of fighting, or of Leo's voice, or anything. Just rustling cattails and dripping water.

Raph felt the ground underfoot change a bit, and he knelt down, examining it. A feeling of dread began to wash over him as he noticed the patterns in the dirt and grass. He let his hand gently wander across the flattened foliage, trying to feel for clues without disturbing anything. "There was a fight here. With something big, though I can't tell what."

Then his breathing hitched, his heart felt like it froze in his chest, and he had to fight back the welling panic starting to build.

He carefully reached down and gently picked up the blue strip of cloth off the ground with trembling fingers.

Casey was closer the pond, and his call snapped Raph to full attention immediately. "Raph, get over here! Now!"

The panic in Raph now welled up almost to the breaking point as he scrambled up to his feet and sprinted over as fast as he could move his feet. He screeched next to a halt next to Casey, and then he saw what Casey saw, and it felt like somebody punched him right in the gut.

There, laying empty and broken in the muddy ground next to the pond, were torn leather straps, Leo's weapons, and all his gear. Just laying there as if it had fallen off of him in place. One sword was still sheathed in the scabbard attached to the leather straps, and he could see the other sticking out of the weeds nearby. He could see the blinking tPhone still attached to the leather belt. There was no sign of Leo himself anywhere.

"What?" Raph's breath came in unevenly as he tried to make sense of this. He could understand Leo losing his swords. That was a terrifying event in and of itself. But for Leo to lose not only his weapons, but everything? His scabbards, gear belt, and even his mask? What had happened here?!

"I don't see any blood." Casey was kneeling down by the gear, examining the mud closely. He was obviously trying to remain optimistic. "That's good, isn't it?"

And then they both noticed some movement in the mud beneath the belt, like something small was trapped in the soft, wet muck.

"What the heck?" Casey reached over and cautiously scraped some of the mud from the moving lump with his hockey glove.

A tiny turtle head popped out from the soft wet clay from which it had been so rudely pressed down into.

"Oh... _FUCK_!" Both Casey and Raph breathed at the same time.

* * *

"Of all the.. Why are they doing construction on this road now?!" Donnie raged, swerving around a traffic cone. "At this rate, it'll be faster to ditch the Shellraiser and go by rooftop."

April put a hand on his arm. "Leo is going to be fine, Donnie."

He gave her a strained smile, and then the tPhone rang. He noticed the ID, and quickly pushed a button on the dashboard. "Casey? What's going on? Have you found Leo?"

"Donnie!" Casey's voice came through the vehicle speaker, and was squeaky with panic. "Dude, you need to get over here NOW, man! It's bad! It's really bad!"

Donnie felt icy fear constrict his chest. A thousand scenarios of a severely injured or maimed Leo crossed his mind all at once. _Oh, let him still be alive. Please, let his big brother still be alive!_ "Casey! I need you to calm down and talk to me! What's the situation?! Is Leo badly hurt?!"

"Leo's a turtle!" Casey's sounded like he was on the verge of hysterics.

Dead silence.

Donnie felt his eyelid twitching. He allowed himself to entertain a short fantasy involving his bo staff and Casey's remaining teeth, but then he forced himself to take several deep breaths. Patience. He needed patience with this special boy. "Casey..." he asked in an almost a little too kindly voice, tension running deep underneath. "Just how many times did Raphael hit you in the head tonight?"

"No, I mean he's a normal turtle now!" Casey was obviously annoyed by Donnie's lack of understanding.

"Wait, Casey..." April sounded horrified. "Are you saying...?"

"I'm saying that I could now use Leo as a hockey puck at the moment!" Casey snapped in frustration. "I'm holding him right now in one hand! One hand!"

"Leo's been demutated..." Donnie whispered in horror.

"Donnie! Road! Road!" April squeaked in terror, hands flying over to correct the steering wheel.

There was honking and cursing and the Shellraiser swerved several times before righting itself.

Donnie gasped and snapped his focus back into place, concentrating on the road and conversation. He could panic later, right now his brother needed him with a crystal clear mind. "Casey! Are you positive about this?"

"Yeah, we found him laying among his gear in the mud, including his belt and swords and shit. Raph even found his mask. He says it looks like there was a big fight. We don't know with what, though. We don't see anybody or anything around."

"Raph! Where is Raph right now?" Donnie demanded.

"He's looking around, trying to figure out what exactly happened here."

"Don't let him out of your sight!" Donnie ordered fiercely. "If we don't know what got... got Leo... We don't want it getting Raph too." Another construction sign flashed before them, and Donnie swore under his breath, swerving to take a side street instead. "We're caught in a construction zone, so we're being delayed. We'll be there as soon as we can."

"Hurry, guys." Casey sounded worried and scared.

"Just hang on and keep hidden." Donnie instructed them. Then, after a moment, he added in a deadly serious tone. "Oh, and Casey? If you EVER talk about using Leo, or any of my brothers, as a hockey puck again, even in jest, I will personally show you several creative and painful ways actual hockey pucks can be used. Now keep an eye on my brothers until we get there!"

He pushed the call button before Casey could respond, and the call ended. The van was deathly silent for a moment.

"Donnie?" Mikey finally spoke up in a small voice. "You can fix Leo, right? Bring him back to normal?"

Donnie almost wanted to let out a strangled laugh. Was it hysteria setting in? Normal? What on earth was normal about a mutant turtle? If anything, demutating was what made Leo more normal. But he couldn't say anything like that to Mikey. No, he had to be the comforting brother at the moment. And maybe, just maybe, if he made it convincing enough, he could comfort himself as well.

"I have every confidence that I should be able to, Mikey, especially if we find out what happened to him in the first place. If it was a mutagen siphoning attack, we'll have to somehow retrieve Leo's missing mutagen and reintroduce it into his body. If it's a mutagen repression situation, it'll be a matter of reverse engineering the process. Of course, there is a possibility that it was a secondary mutation, which counteracted and cancelled out Leo's original mutation. In such a scenario, I guess I would have to engineer a specific retromutagen to only effect the newer... Oh, for the love of Tesla's coils!" Donnie swore as they reached another construction zone and had to make another detour.

* * *

"Come on Leo." Casey was sitting cross legged in the grass and had the tiny, mud-encrusted turtle cradled gently in his gloved hands, peering closely at the retracted body inside the shell. "You can come out! It's me, your pal Casey Jones! You're safe now!"

Raph landed lightly next to Casey, and shook his head. "I can't seem to find any sign of an enemy nearby anymore. The tracks make no sense either! I think I recognize a few of Leo's, but I have no idea how many things he was fighting, or what they even were. The only thing I can tell is that they're not normal prints!" He gritted his teeth, frustrated. Somebody or something had attacked his brother, and he didn't know how to help him. Every instinct in him just wanted to find the responsible party and cave their faces in with his fist, but there was nothing to hit! He felt so helpless, and he hated that! He sighed and turned to Casey. "How's Leo doing?"

Casey shook his head. "Still hiding in his shell. I don't know man, it's like he doesn't even recognize us. I hope the others gets here soon, maybe April can get through to him."

Raph adjusted Leo's sword scabbards and gear thrown over his shoulder, and numbly nodded. "And Donnie will figure everything out, I know. I just feel so... useless right now." He still hadn't come to terms that the small turtle that Casey was holding was his brother, Leonardo. The same brother he had grown up with, fought with, trained with, argued with over anything and everything. That little, frightened thing that probably weighed less then two pounds, that couldn't be his fearless leader and sensei. It just didn't seem possible. He shuffled his feet, then growled and turned away. "I'm going to go look down by the pond again. See if there aren't some clues I missed."

"Yeah, man. I'll keep talking to Leo. I'm not sure, but maybe, somewhere deep down, he can understand me. Maybe I can make him feel a little better."

"Hey! Is somebody down there?!" A flashlight started bobbing down the hill towards them, and it looked like two humans were heading down from the junkyard towards them. "Hey, you! Kid! What are you doing out here!"

"Crap! Somebody's coming! Raph, you gotta hide!" Casey scrambled to his feet and turned towards Raph in alarm, but blinked when all he saw was the grass blowing gently in the night breeze. He sighed and shook his head, wondering why he was surprised every time this happened. The turtles were ninjas, after all.

He turned back and pasted a friendly, innocent smile on his face, inwardly screaming all the while when he saw one of the approaching humans was a cop. The other one looked more like some sort of official inspector or something.

"Good evening, officer!" he kept his tone casual and friendly. "It's a lovely night out for a stroll, wouldn't you agree?"

"What are you doing out here, kid?" the police officer looked at him suspiciously.

"I'm... uh... doing a school project." Casey fished quickly around for a believable alibi. His gaze fell over the pond momentarily. "Collecting leaves... and nature things..."

"Uh... huh." the officer didn't look convinced as he looked Casey over. "At two in the morning?"

"Um... well.. this is embarrassing, but I completely forgot about the project until tonight, and it's due first thing in the morning! Talk about pulling your all nighters, huh?" Casey laughed nervously, rubbing the back of his head.

"Tomorrow's Sunday." the officer pointed out, arms crossed.

"It's... for Sunday school?" Casey gave his most convincing, gap-toothed smile.

They weren't buying it.

The cop narrowed his eyes. "Nice try kid. I'm afraid you're coming with me. We're going to have a chat with your folks and see if they're aware of your late night 'Sunday School projects'."

"Not to mention you'll definitely need to avoid this area for the time being." the inspector let the flashlight roam across the pond area. "We were just investigating a report of a toxic chemical being improperly disposed of in the area, and we're going to have to close off the area to the public until it's cleaned up." He turned the flashlight back onto Casey. "If you have collected any samples from this area for this hypothetical school project, I'm afraid I'm going to have to confiscate them. We're not entirely sure how far the contamination has spread."

Casey felt a welling of panic, and tried to casually keep the turtle he held out of sight. "Samples? Oh, um, no, I just got here. I didn't have time to collect anything yet."

"What are you hiding behind your back?" the cop asked suspiciously, taking a step forward.

"Nothing!" Casey protested, taking a step back.

There was a brief scuffle, which ended up with the cop holding Casey's arm in one hand, and the turtle in the other. The officer gave Casey a dark look. "And just what were you planning on doing with this turtle, young man?!"

"I wasn't going to hurt him, I swear! Never!" Casey protested fiercely, tugging his arm. "He's... he's my pet! I was just taking him out for a walk! Can't a kid take his pet out for a walk these days?! I thought this was America!"

The inspector took the turtle in gloved hands and looked it over. "This turtle is obviously from the pond area, judging from the mud and clay coating it. I'll take it back to the lab and do some blood tests for contamination."

"What?! No! Wait, you don't understand. That turtle is my friend! You can't take him!" Casey struggled in the cop's grip.

"Come on, kid. You're going to give me your folk's phone number, and we're going to have a long talk down at the station." the cop said sternly, pulling Casey along.

Raph watched them go from his hiding place, swearing inwardly. He quickly grabbed his tPhone.

* * *

"Mikey! Have you pulled up the navigation maps yet?" Donnie hissed in frustration, glaring at yet another detour barricade. "We need to figure out how to bypass all this COMPLETELY ILLOGICAL AND PROBABLY HIGHLY AGAINST CITY CODING ORDINANCES construction going on!"

"I'm trying, but it's still calculating, Dee!" Mikey hollered back from the navigation station. "It looks like the roads in this area are seriously messed up!"

"Of all the... Seriously, there must be either some serious bribes being toss around, or some sort of councilman's revenge against some rival in this neighborhood!" Donnie continued to rant. "This makes no sense!"

April exhaled, sticking her head out the window to look around. "Maybe you had the right idea, Donnie. Maybe taking to the rooftops would be faster."

The tPhone started ringing again, and Donnie quickly pressed the speaker button on the Shellraiser. "Raph! We're still trying to get there. What's going on?"

"Donnie, we have trouble!" Raph hissed in an urgent whisper.

"What now?! Are you under attack?!" Donnie was instantly alert.

"Some humans were here investigating that chemical spill you called in, and now some cop is dragging Casey away, and the other human is talking about taking Leo to a lab for testing!" Raph sounded close to panicking.

"Shit." Donnie very rarely swore, but this seemed like the right time to let Raph and Casey's influence slip through. He had told the officials over the phone that the spill was extremely dangerous and stressed that it should be taken care of immediately, but he had never imagined that they would actually do so. At the very least, he expected them to wait until daylight! Now any clues as to what had happened to Leo would either be trampled on or rendered inaccessible to him by all the humans that were crawling around there. Of all the times for the humans to actually start acting responsibly!

"What do I do, Donnie?!" Raph was clearly torn. "I know I can't be seen, but I can't just let them take Leo! Do I... do I attack the cop?"

"Raphael, do _NOT_ attack the police officer! Do you understand me?! You are NOT to attack the police officer!" Donnie ordered emphatically, his finger firmly poking the speaker as if hoping that Raph would be able to feel it and realize just how strongly Donnie was discouraging this.

There was a moment of silence, and then Raph spoke up again, less in a whisper this time and now sounding more impressed. "Oh, wait. Never mind. Casey's attacking the cop."

"He's _WHAT_?!" Donnie's voice squeaked several octaves higher then normal.

April gave a groan and buried her face in her hands.

"Oh, yeah dude!" Mikey cheered from the back seat. "Rage against the machine!"

"Ha! I taught him that move! And now he's got Leo back and he's running for it! I'm going to see if I can't help him. Don't worry, I'll make sure I'm not seen." Raph quickly said, and then hung up on them.

Donnie yanked on the steering wheel, causing the Shellraiser to screech to the side and off the street to disappear down an alleyway. He slammed the gear to park as he turned it off, and threw open the door. "That's it! Everybody out! We're taking to the rooftops!"


	4. Losing a Brother

_Author's Note:_

 _In this chapter, at some point, there's the usage of text messaging. I'll admit, this was probably one of the sections I kept reworking over and over, and never really was satisfied with it. You see, the problem is that I'm what's known as 'old', and while I begrudgingly learned to read text speak, I've never learned how to write it myself. I text like I write, with punctuation, grammar, and complete sentences (the invention of phones with keyboards was a blessing!). While I know that Mikey would text like most normal young people do now, every attempt I made ended up looking like what it actually was; an old fogey trying to get down with the young'uns and speak the lingo of the youth. Frankly, it was embarrassing, and I finally gave up on it._

 _What I like to imagine instead is that Mikey just dictated the text to his phone, using the speech to text function like I do, thus the text looking like something he said. I also like to imagine that he dictated it out loud while right next to Donnie, and thus promptly got a smack and dirty look for it._

 _But that's just me. Anyways, just thought I'd give a heads up for one part of the story I'm not entirely happy with._

* * *

Just keep running! Run! Run forever!

Casey gasped for breath as he tried to make a corner too fast, skidded on one leg for balance, then found his balance and continued his dash down the street. He wished he had his skates. He wished he had his bike! Heck, he wished that he had a flying, rocket powered hover board, as long as he was making a list. One painted with flames and skulls, with spikes around the edges, and... and an extendable buzzsaw arm! That would be so metal! He made a mental note to talk to Donnie later. But for now, he had to keep running.

"Hang on, Leo!" he panted, glancing down at the turtle he held tightly in both gloved hands. "Casey Jones don't let NOBODY make a lab experiment out of one his buddies!"

He let a cocky grin cross his face as he looked behind him, seeing the now-slightly-limping officer falling further and further behind. They were going to make it!

He turned around another corner.

Shit! A cop car!

And it was starting to flash its lights at him!

He turned to run down the other way, but crap, another cop car! And behind him, shouting at him to stop, the officer chasing him was catching up! They weren't going to make it!

Casey bolted down an alleyway, leaping over some boxes and dodging some trash cans as he emerged on the next street, and started racing though a parking lot, sneakers slapping against the pavement. He bought himself some precious few moments, but he could hear sirens and that cop's yelling coming up fast. He needed a plan! He needed a plan! They were going to catch up to him any minute now, and if they caught him, they'd take Leo away to some unholy lab and do who knew what to the poor guy! And Casey Jones was too young and awesome to go to prison! He needed a plan!

As he passed a large parked delivery truck, a lightning fast blur appeared, throwing open the truck's back doors while at the same time grabbing Casey, tossing him in with almost inhuman strength before it followed him in, slamming the doors behind it.

The force and speed of it sent Casey crashed into some metal shelves, causing several plastic bins to tumble all around him. He almost gave out what would've been an embarrassingly girly scream, if a three fingered green hand hadn't slapped over his mouth. In the darkness he could barely make out Raph's features as he held a silent finger in front of his mouth, warning him to remain quiet. Casey went limp with relief at the sight of the red masked turtle. He nodded, and Raph removed his hand and stepped back.

There was a vented window in the truck wall, letting the little light that was available filter in, and Raph peeked out through the slots. After a few minutes, he exhaled in relief. "They're going further down the street. I think we're safe for now."

Casey was still sitting on the floor, trying to catch his breath. "Thanks for the save, man. Also, watch your step, I dropped Leo when you threw me in here, and he's probably crawling around the floor somewhere."

"Oh, shit. We need to find him, quick. Sorry about that, didn't realize there'd actually be crap in here." Raph carefully slid a foot along the floor, then reached down and started gingerly feeling across the floor. "What fell, anyways? We' re lucky that they didn't hear that."

"Some plastic bins. They weren't heavy or anything." Casey started feeling across the floor with both hands. One hand touched a small turtle shell, and he gave a sigh of relief.

"I found Leo." Both he and Raph said at the same time, then they both paused, bewildered.

"Um..." Casey was confused for a second, wondering how Raph could've found Leo over there if he definitely found him over here. And then he felt another turtle shell next to the first one he found. He gulped, feeling around some more. "Raph? There's two Leo's over here. Wait, make that three. Four?"

Raph was standing up again and was frantically feeling across the ceiling. Finding the dome light, he flicked it on, letting light illuminate the back area of the truck so they could see.

"Oh... fuck..." They both breathed out at the same time.

Among all the now-opened plastic bins that had fallen off the metal racks, more then a couple dozen pet turtles littered the floor, some crawling, some hiding in their shells, and some rocking helplessly on their back, trying in vain to right themselves. They could see dozens of more clear plastic bins still sitting undisturbed on the metal racks, each one with several more turtles inside.

"Raph, of all the trucks you decided to hide in, you decided to pick the one transporting pet turtles?!" Casey's voice started to rise.

"Shhh! Do you want them to hear you out there?!" Raph hissed, and then snapped in sarcastic frustration. "And well, you know, I knew this model of truck gets good gas milage, the tires looked good, and I liked the color. Of course I didn't fucking know! How many trucks are filled with turtles?!"

"Oh god... which one's Leo?!" Casey hands were on his head, panic on his face. "They all look the same!" Wait, was that racist? He really hoped Raph didn't think that sounded racist. Though he halfway suspected that Raph couldn't tell the difference between them either.

Raph noticed something, and closed his eyes, exhaling in relief. He gently reached down and scooped up a small turtle. "He's this one."

"Are you sure? How can you tell? Is it a turtle thing? Brotherly instincts?" Casey peered over to look.

Raph showed him. "He's the only one covered in pond muck."

"Oh, yeah. Good thinking." Casey looked relieved. "It's a good thing that we didn't have a chance to clean him off yet." He looked at the turtle in Raph's grasp for a moment, then reached back, searching through his gear. "Here, hold him out for a moment."

Raph looked at him curiously, but did as asked, holding out his hands with the small turtle cradled gently in his palms.

Casey pulled a can of blue spray paint off his belt, then carefully rubbed a spot clean on the muddy turtle's shell with his glove. Shaking the can a few times, he then sprayed a blue spot onto the small brown carapace. He took a step back and nodded. "There. Now we definitely can't lose him."

Raph inspected the blue mark on the small shell forlornly. "Yeah.. Yeah... good idea Case."

Casey chewed his lip for a moment, then reached back for a different can. "Raph? Turn around for a second?"

Not really sure what he wanted, Raph nonetheless turned so his own shell was facing Casey.

Casey had plucked another can off his belt, and proceeded to carefully spray a red dot on the center part of Raph's shell. The red masked turtle glanced over his shoulder questioningly, then raised an eye ridge at Casey, who just shrugged. "You know... just in case..." He felt a little awkward as he put the can away again. "You're not covered in mud, and I don't want to risk losing you too."

Raph turned back around and put a hand on his shoulder, giving him a soft smile and nodding. "Thanks, man." Then he sighed. "Come on, let's get these other turtles off the floor and back in their cases. I'd feel really bad if one of them got hurt."

* * *

They had almost all of the escaped turtles back in their plastic holding containers, when Raph's phone buzzed. Shifting the blue marked turtle that he held to one hand, he used the other to flick his phone on and glance at the text from Mikey.

 _"D's doing that thing where he's trying to do deep calming breaths, but its just making him whistle a bit through that tooth gap. Call him."_

"Hm. Guess I should give Donnie a call." Raph frowned.

He dialed, and held the phone up to his head.

Donnie answered almost immediately. "Raph! Are you safe? Are Casey and Leo safe?" He sounded a lot calmer then Raph expected him to be.

"Yeah, we're hiding out." Raph peered out of the vents once more. "Our position is secure, and I'm pretty sure we lost the cops, but we're waiting to make sure."

"Oh, good. Is Casey close by? Can you put him on?"

"Um... sure?" Raph blinked, then handed the phone over to Casey. "He wants to talk to you?"

Casey took the phone. "Yo, Casey Jones here! What up, Dee?"

"WHATWEREYOUTHINKINGATTACKINGTHEPOLICEOFFICER?!AREYOUNUTS?!"

Casey winced and pulled the screaming phone away from his ear.

Raph sighed and pulled the phone away from Casey. "Hey, hey... we managed to escape them. Calm down, Donnie."

"Don'tyoutellmetocalmdown." Donnie hissed angrily over the phone. "He assaulted a police officer! Of all the anserine, idiotic things to do!"

"Well, what was I supposed to do?!" Casey protested over Raph's shoulder. "Just let them take Leo?"

"Yes!" Donnie said, exasperated.

"What? Are you crazy, Donnie?!" Raph looked at the phone in disbelief.

"Yeah, bro!" Mikey's voice also sounded from the other side. "What the heck?! Did you want them to turn Leo into a lab experiment?!"

"Listen, they were not going to turn Leo into a 'lab experiment'." Donnie was doing his best to sound patient, and was failing. "They were gathering evidence of the chemical spill. What I guarantee would've happened was that he would've put Leo in a box and left him with the other evidence he's gathered so far in a spot so he can drive it all back to his lab later. The human then would've went back and continued his investigation on the spill, leaving the evidence pile unattended and leaving plenty of opportunities for us to retrieve Leo easily and unseen!"

"And what about Casey?" Raph shot back. "The cop was going to take him back to the station for questioning!"

"At that point, Casey had done absolutely nothing wrong." Donnie stated as if it should be obvious. "The most that would've happened to Casey is that they would've given him a lecture at the police station and probably called his dad. Maybe Casey would've gotten grounded, but like that's anything new. But no... instead you had to commit assault on an officer of the law, which is something that could land you into actual legal trouble!" Donnie's voice was starting to rise up in pitch again. "You weren't in trouble before, but you certainly are now, if they identify you!"

Raph growled, getting frustrated himself. Okay, maybe Donnie had a point. This is why they needed Leo! For situations like this!

Sudden he stiffened in alarm. Just outside of the truck, he could hear two human male voices approaching.

Language ran through his mind that would definitely would've had Leo lecturing him for at least an hour. He quickly ended the call on his tPhone, sending a quick _'humans outside, call later'_ text to explain, and gestured towards Casey to be quiet.

"Told ya that diner was pretty good." a male voice was drawling from outside, gravel crunching loudly (to a ninja, anyways) under their boots as they walked around the exterior.

"Eh, it was okay. Twenty four hour places can be a bit of a hit or miss." the other voice sounded noncommital. "At any rate, we needed the break."

"Hm..." The first voice sounded distracted, and boot crunches moved back towards the cargo doors. "Say, Phil. Did you leave the light on in the back there?"

There was a metallic 'chunk', and then the door swung open, letting street light shine into the cargo hold from behind the two humans in uniforms.

A middle aged man with a scruffy beard blinked as he peered in the cargo hold, which looked to be empty save for the innocent looking plastic bins of turtles on the racks. "What are you talking about? The light's off."

The other, shorter man scratched his pudgy chin, frowning as he looked inside. "Coulda sworn I saw light coming from inside."

"Yeah, the night shifts are getting to you, Steve. Ain't nothing in there but the turtles!" the bearded man scoffed, shutting the doors and leaving the cargo hold in darkness once more. "Come on. We gotta get these deliveries done."

There was once more the crunching of footsteps as the humans walked away, then the sound of the cab doors opening and shutting.

Well, now that the coast was clear...

"Raph... you're... squishing me..." Casey gave a muffled complaint, his cheek pressed up against the ceiling. He was trapped between Raph's hard plastron and the metal ceiling of the cargo hold. They were up in the corner just beside the doors, where they had been barely out of sight of the humans.

Raph released his tenuous handholds and dropped silently to the truck floor, catching Casey bridal style as he tumbled down after. "That was too close." he mumbled.

There was a jerk and rumble as the truck's engine roared to life.

Raph glanced down at Casey in his arms. "You got Leo, right?"

Casey held up the little muddy turtle.

Raph nodded. "It's time to go, then."

* * *

If Raph had been bothered by carrying two passengers and all of Leo's gear on his shell as he climbed up the vertical brick wall with nothing more then the two spiked metal bands around his hands, the strong turtle didn't show it. They had almost made it to the top of the building with seemingly little effort, and Raph was just reaching for the ledge of the roof, when suddenly Mikey's freckled face was there, peering over the edge of the building down at them. "Dudes! You made it!"

" _Geez_!" Raph almost jumped, but caught himself quickly. " _Shit_ , Mikey! Don't do that!" He snarled, trying to catch his breath.

Mikey was already reaching over with both hands, grabbing Casey and helping pull him up off of Raph's shell and up onto the roof. "We've been looking for you guys! Is Leo really a little turtle now? Can he still talk to us? Did you figure out what happened? Did the humans really want to experiment on Leo? And did you really attack a cop, dude? Does that mean you're going to jail now? Don't worry, dude, I'll bake you a cake with a nail file in it!" Raph, by now, had clambered up onto the roof himself. Without a word, he slipped off one of his shukos, reached over, and grabbed Mikey's face. "Mmmph!"

"Leo!" Donnie pushed himself forward, stress and worry etched on his face. "Where's Leo?!"

"He's right here, D. I wasn't going to let anything else happen to him." Casey held out the turtle to Donnie, looking unusually somber.

"Leo..." Donnie breathed in disbelief, looking at the tiny helpless creature completely withdrawn into it's muddy, blue-dotted shell. He gently took the turtle from Casey, enveloping the small shell carefully in both of his hands and taking deep breaths to steady himself.

"Oh, Leo..." April reached out to tentatively brush a finger across the edge of his shell. She blinked back tears, and put a hand on the purple masked turtle's arm, who was suddenly looking rather unsure and shaken.

Donnie exhaled, opened his eyes, and moved his hands a little to take a better look. "Hey Leo..." he said gently to the obviously frightened turtle in a quiet voice that only cracked slightly from emotion. "It's okay, you're safe. I'll fix this somehow. I promise. I'll fix this."

Mikey pushed away Raph's hand, and quickly scurried over to peer over Donnie's arm. "Dude! _That's_ Leo?! He's... he's tiny!"

Raph had pulled his other shuko off, putting them away and dusting himself off. "I have his stuff here too." Raph said a little too gruffly, nodding towards Leo's swords and gear draped across his shell.

April noticed how tense and quiet he was, and moved over by him, taking Raph by surprise by wrapping him in a tight hug. "Leo's going to be so proud of you when he's back to normal." she muttered quietly into Raph's chest.

Those words hit Raph harder then he'd ever admit, and he staggered as if physically punched. He took a few deep breaths to compose himself, then gently wrapped one arm around his human sister's shoulders and gave her a tight squeeze, bumping his beak against her red hair.

"...and then we noticed a ton of turtles in plastic bins!" Casey was explaining to Mikey and Donnie about their escape from the cops, though it looked like Donnie too occupied with the turtle in his hands to really listen. "It was so surreal! Of all the trucks to hide in, we got that one!"

"Man, you guys so lucked out." Mikey's wide blue eyes widened even more as he leaned over the side of the building as if looking for the long-departed delivery truck. "If this were the movies, there's be some sort of accident where a bunch of the turtles in there somehow got loose, and you also somehow dropped Leo in the mix, and then you'd be all 'Oh no! Which one's Leo?!'. Dudes! Could you imagine if that actually happened?"

"Eh heh..." Raph and Casey both gave more of a cough then a laugh.

"Please tell me you didn't..." Donnie was suddenly very interested in the conversation now, sounding horrified.

"Wait, really?!" Mikey was thunderstruck, looking from Raph to Leo and back. "Does that mean we have to do crazy shenanigans to find him again?!" It was hard to tell if he was worried or excited. Probably both.

"We found Leo right away!" Raph got defensive. "And we put the other turtles back where they belong. It's like we were never in there!"

"Are you sure you have the right turtle?!" Donnie was starting to panic again, looking up at Raph and down to the small turtle in his hands several times. "Are you one hundred percent positive?!"

"You'd think I wouldn't be able to recognize my own brother?!" Raph snapped.

"He wasn't able to, by the way." Casey informed them. Raph punched him in the arm. "Ow!"

Raph sighed. "Fine. But we were able to tell because Leo is still covered in pond mud. See? Look at him. Those turtles in there were all completely clean and dry. So yes, Donnie, I'm sure we got the right Leo."

"Yes... yes... I guess that is logical... Of course this is Leo here... It has to be..." Donnie sounded like he was trying to reassure himself, peering down at the turtle closely. He took a deep, shaky breath and then, looking around, spotted a light fixture attached to the roof access. He nodded towards it. "I need to figure out what happened. Let's get him in the light so I can see."

"Here, I have some water." April offered, pulling a small water bottle off her belt. "Let's clean some of that mud off of him."

"Thanks April." Donnie murmured, and they moved over to the light.

"Mikey?" Casey hesitantly asked, and the youngest turtle looked over to see his human friend fiddling with a can of orange spray paint awkwardly, as if he wasn't sure how to ask.

Raph understood, and turned his shell to Mikey to show him the red paint spot. "Casey tagged me and Leo. Y'know, since we're not really sure what's going on. Just in case."

A wide grin lit up Mikey's face, and he eagerly turned his shell towards Casey. "Dude! Of course!"

Thus, in a few sprays of a paint can, Mikey was happily trying to examine the orange smiley face sprayed on his shell. "Stylin', dude!"

"Well, I thought I should give it a little 'Mikey Flair'." Casey looked a little more reassured as he put the can away.

"Well, it's Mikey approved." Mikey gave him a thumbs up. "You'll have to get D next too."

Donnie was carefully pouring water over the small turtle, using a cloth to wipe away the muddy clay. He froze as he noticed something.

"Donnie?" April asked worriedly, seeing the look crossing his face.

"Guys... I've got bad news..." Donnie sounded panicked and stressed again. "This isn't Leo!"

"What?!" Raph stiffened, and he marched over to Donnie to take another look at the turtle. "Of course it is! It has to be!"

Donnie shoved the now-clean turtle in Raph's face."Well, unless Leo was secretly our sister all these years, then _no, it's definitely not_!"

"Oh, shit. " Raph's eyes widened. With the lack of mud, and the better lighting, he could see that Donnie was right.

"It's a girl turtle? You can tell?" Casey asked dubiously, leaning in to look closer.

A faint blush colored Don's face as he hissed. "Trustmewecantell!"

Raph's face blanched in horror, and he raced over to the side of the building, looking down frantically over the edge. "Leo must still be in that truck! Fuck!"

"It couldn't have gotten far! It was going in that direction, right? We need to catch up to it!" April ordered, taking a running start before leaping over to touch down lightly on the other roof, already in a dead run, following the road the truck had rambled down.

"We're coming, Leo!" The fastest of the brothers, Mikey bolted in front of her across the rooftops, his body low as he sped ahead.

"Do you guys remember what the vehicle looked like?!" Donnie panted, coming up close behind.

"Uh..." Casey wracked his brain as he ran. "It was green, I think? Might've had a lizard or something painted on the side."

Raph noticed that Donnie was still holding the female turtle. Looking around as he ran, he noticed a rather large hoodie sweatshirt that had been left out to dry on the railing near an apartment window, and he swerved to grab it as he flew by. Catching up to Donnie, he took the turtle from his brother, and put her gently in the hood. While still running, he skillfully twisting the sweatshirt up and tied the sleeves around his shell to create a makeshift carrying sling, leaving her securely nestled in the tucked-in hood across his plastron. Just because she wasn't Leo didn't mean that he wanted an innocent turtle to get injured, after all. Especially since he was the one who had accidentally kidnapped her.

 _Master Splinter... if you're watching over us right now... We really need your help! We need to find Leo!_

"Guys! There! Look!" April suddenly gasped, pointing to the green truck with a smiling iguana face, idly a few blocks away at a stoplight, getting ready to turn onto the ramp leading to a highway. "That must be it!"

"I can't believe it!" Casey was dumbfounded. "I thought for sure it was long gone!"

"There's all sorts of street delays and stuff going on right now." April panted as they ran. "It's nice to see it working in our favor for once!"

The light turned green, and the truck started off again, turning onto the fairly deserted street and starting to accelerate.

"We'll never catch it on that road! It'll be going too fast!" Donnie's knuckle's whitened, horror on his face.

And then, to his even greater horror, he saw that a certain orange masked turtle, already far ahead of them, was already swinging through the air to land on the back of the truck as it started to pick up highway speed.

"Booyakasha!"

" _MIKEY!_ "

* * *

"HAMATO MICHELANGELO!" Donnie snarled into the tPhone as they raced across the rooftops, trying desperately to keep up with the much faster delivery truck, already long lost to sight. "You are in so much trouble when we get our hands on you! What do you think you're doing?!"

"What was that, bro? I can't hear you." They could barely hear Mikey's voice over the roar or rushing air on his end. "Hang on, let me get out of the wind." There was the sounds of thunking, chains, a bit of metal screeching, and then the overwhelming noise of the wind lessened greatly. "Okay, that should be better. What up, dawgs?" His voice came in much clearer now.

"What?" Donnie was perplexed. "How... where did you find shelter from the wind on the back of the truck?"

"Oh, easy. I used my Kusarigama to hang off the back. Lot less windy back here."

Donnie's eye twitched. "Mikey... are you telling me that you're dangling by a chain off the back of a moving vehicle?"

"No worries, D! There's like, no traffic here at this time of night, it's dark enough out, and besides, the truck's green and I'm green! Natural camouflage, brah! Nobody is going to see me!"

"That's not what I'm worried about!"

Raph could see that Donnie was on the edge of completely melting down, and decided to take over, speeding up to snatch the phone from the stressed genius and dashing ahead with it.

"Mikey..." he growled into the phone as he ran, adjusting the small turtle bundle tied to him to settle more comfortably. "Do you mind sharing with the rest of us what your brilliant plan was?"

"To get Leo back, duh."

"Uh huh, uh huh. That's a goal. What's the plan, though?"

"Um..." Mikey sounded a little hesitant. "I'll admit... I'm kinda winging it."

"You have to admit, some of Mikey's best ideas happen when he's being spontaneous." April panted as she ran.

"It's Mikey!" Raph shot back. "All of his ideas happen when he's being spontaneous."

Donnie grabbed his phone back. "Okay, Mikey, listen closely. We can track you through the tPhone. Just hang on tight, keep out of sight as much as possible, and wait for us."

"Can do, bro!" Mikey replied cheerfully.

"I mean it, Mikey!" Donnie said seriously. "Your location tracker with the tPhone is our only way of tracking that truck and thus Leo. No heroics. Just stay with Leo, and don't do anything reckless!"

"I get it, D!" Mikey could almost be heard rolling his eyes. "Geez! You guys are always acting like I'm going to _*THUMP* *CRACK* *SMASH* *Ksssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssh*_ "

"Mikey?!" Donnie could only hear static coming in now. "MIKEY!" He looked at Raph in horror. "We lost Mikey!"

"What?!" Raph looked horrified.

Donnie quickly started pushing buttons on his phone. "We can still track the last location before contact was lost! Come on!"

* * *

Several minutes later, they were surrounding a smashed tPhone laying in the middle of the empty street.

"He dropped the tPhone?" Raph surmised, nudging the destroyed electronic with a toe.

"He dropped the tPhone." Don sighed.

"Fuck." Raph frowned.

"Don't swear, Raph." Donnie knelt down and scooped up the bits of plastic, metal, and circuitry off the asphalt, picking it up and looking at it forlornly.

They couldn't even begin to describe the relief at seeing only a heap of circuitry and not a bloody smear on the asphalt, but the gravity of the situation still hung heavy in the air.

"So now what?" Casey asked with uncertainty.

Raph shrugged. "Panic, I suppose?"

Donnie took a deep breath, and began pacing in circles. "Okay, we just need to think about this rationally. That truck is delivering pet turtles to pet stores, right?" He put the remains of Mikey's tPhone in an empty pouch, and pulled out his own tPhone, turning on the screen. "All we need to do is figure out all the pet stores in the surrounding area, map out logical delivery paths, work out a systematic scouting formation, and try to track down the truck and our brothers through visual cues and calculated search patterns."

"Should we split up?" April asked. "We could cover more ground that way."

"No." Raph said firmly. "We're already down two brothers, and I'm STILL not entirely sure what's going on! We're staying together."

Donnie frowned, stopping his pacing and glancing up from his phone. "I get where you're coming from, Raph, but we may not have a choice. Our chances of finding the truck go down exponentially if we're grouped together. We have a far greater chance of success if we all search over a wide area."

"Whatever got Leo is still out there!" Raph argued, gesturing towards the city. "What's to say it won't come after another one of us next!"

"Trust me when I say that I'm worried about that possibility as well!" Donnie snapped back, going back to his electronic typing. "But that doesn't change the fact that Mikey is still out there alone, and if we don't find Leo now, we might never get him back. We have to risk it!"

"Gah!" Raph grabbed his head in frustration and stomped around in a small circle. Every fiber of his being right now wanted his family together and close by so he could protect them if needed. Now he was thrown into a situation where in order to rescue two brothers, he had to risk his last remaining brother? This is why Leo was the leader! He would probably already not only have a plan ready, but a back up plan, and a back up plan for the back up plan! "Fine! Groups of two then! April and you, Casey and me!"

"We could do that." Donnie looked hesitant. "It'll be safer, but it'll also cut our chances of success in half. That's still a big risk to take."

"How about this?" Who said Raph couldn't compromise? He held up a hand. "Three groups. April and I will each check out a path alone, and you and Casey will take a third."

"What?! I don't need a babysitter any more then you do, Raph!" Donnie looked insulted.

"Donnie, of all of us, we can least afford to lose you!" Raph argued, walking up to poke his brother's plastron. "If something happened to you, then it's basically game over! Nobody else here would even know where to begin to start a cure! You're our only hope for getting Leo back!"

"Well, why do I get stuck with Casey then?!"

"Because I trust April out there alone by herself more then Casey."

"Hey!"

"Oh, don't act so huffy! You still have cops out there looking for you, remember?"

As if in answer, the sound of approaching sirens was the only warning they got. Seconds later, a police car roared around the corner, lights blazing and slicing the night with flashes of color, then it continued racing up the empty street, leaving only an old newspaper to flutter across the black asphalt under the light of a streetlamp.

From the shadows, halfway up a fire escape, two white eyes blinked open, watching the lights and listening to the siren's wail disappear off into the distance. Then, with an exhale, the eyes blinked, and turned mahogany once more. "That was too close." Donnie muttered. Casey was flung over one of his shoulders.

Nearby, Raph materialized out of the shadows, hanging on a window ledge. "Think they were after Casey?"

Donnie shook his head. "No, they were going too fast to be looking for a kid possibly hiding in an alley. They must be responding to a call." There was the rattling sound of aerosol cans shaking, then the hiss of spraying paint cans behind him. Donnie twisted around to see what Casey was doing. "Excuse me?!"

"There." Casey sounded satisfied as he hung over Don's shell. "I didn't have any purple, so I used blue and red paint together! I am a genius."

Donnie growled and dumped Casey onto the fire escape floor. "That had better be water soluble! Do you realize how hard it is to scrub clean your own shell?!"

April dropped down next to him. "Donnie! Plan?!"

"Right!" Donnie's attention flashed back to his tPhone. "I'm texting you two a list of addresses. This should cover the three most logical routes that the truck may have taken. If we each take one, and keep to high vantage points, we should have a good chance of spotting it. Everybody has their tPhones, call if you see something. Even if you don't, I want updates from everybody at each stop."

"Right." April nodded, then took a deep breath and looked at her two turtle best friends. "And if either of you sense anything out of the ordinary, like somebody following you or something, even just the smallest feeling, call immediately! I'm serious, guys!"

Donnie gave her a small smile that was meant to be reassuring. "We'll be fine, April. I promise."

Raph looked at his phone and nodded. He adjusted his new turtle companion swaddled in the sweatshirt one last time, and then started climbing up. "Got it. Let's go find our brothers."

April took a deep breath, looking at her phone to see where she was heading to first, then nodded, starting up the fire escape ladder. "Stay safe everybody. And good luck."

She had a feeling that they were going to need it.


	5. Finding a Brother

Police sirens wailed throughout the neighborhood, the multiple rising and falling tones blending together into a single, eerie melody that split the night. Normally, Raph welcomed the chance for a little solitude. Sometimes living with his brothers could feel a little suffocating. They were always pushing his buttons, riding on his case about his temper, playing the 'How Many Pokes Will Make Raph Snap' game Mikey seemed to find so amusing, crap like that. But, right now, running alone across the rooftops in the cool night air, with the cacophony of sirens wailing all around him and giving the already bizarre night an even more surreal aura, he wanted nothing more then the reassuring presence of a sibling nearby. At this moment, he would have given anything to listen to Leo lecture him about acting too reckless, or to argue with him over a punishment Leo was trying to enforce because Raph had been pummeling Mikey again, even though the youngest brother had definitely brought it on himself. He just wanted things to go back to normal! He wanted all of his brothers!

Raph came to the edge of the building, and crouched down, looking up and down the empty street, before giving a disappointed exhale. He had thoroughly scoped out the area around four different pet stores, and there was absolutely no sign of either the green turtle delivery truck or Mikey. The others hadn't had much luck either, and it had been decided to rendezvous at a central location and try to figure out a new plan.

Raph sighed, and feeling movement, took a moment to peel back a layer of the sweatshirt burrito across his chest to check on the turtle, who was apparently had gotten past her 'scared and hiding into her shell' phase, and was now getting a little restless. He gave her a gentle pat. "Yeah, yeah, I know. It's a terrible first date. I'll make it up with some lettuce leaves later."

There was a light thump nearby, and April came up beside him. She exhaled, blowing a strand of red hair out of her face. "I couldn't find any sign of them." she admitted to him unhappily.

"Have you seen Donnie and Case?" he retucked the turtle away, keep his eyes on the roads below and scanning the vehicles as they passed.

"We're here." Donnie offered, and a second later, he appeared at the top of a fire escape ladder, turning around to help pull Casey up behind him.

"So nobody saw the truck at any of the pet stores?" April sounded worried. "I mean, you'd think they have to stop and unload at some point, shouldn't they?"

Donnie brow was furrowed as he searched his phone screen. "Maybe there's a pet store I missed."

Raph could faintly hear more sirens in the distance.

"Is it just me, or is there a worrying amount of cop activity out there right now?" Casey sounded nervous. "I mean, yeah, sirens aren't anything unusual or anything, but it seems like they're all riled up about something right now."

"It does sound like something's going on in the area." April agreed, obviously not liking the implications. "I've been trying to use my powers to sense danger, but I can't seem to pin down anything. Are you turtles okay? You haven't sensed anything following you, have you?"

Raph exhaled and looked around. "I... I don't think so?"

"You don't THINK so?" Donnie looked up from the phone, sounding concerned. "Raph, that's not reassuring!"

"Hey, I'm a little freaked out right now, okay?!" Raph snapped. Ever since they had split up, he had been jumping at shadows and looking nervously at every hobo sleeping in the alleys he passed over. He hadn't sensed anything out of the ordinary, but he had been growing so paranoid about something being out there, hunting him and his brothers, that his imagination kept playing tricks on him and oh god what if it wasn't his imagination?! "I don't know if I'm actually sensing something, or I just _think_ I'm sensing something!"

"That's a common reaction during stressful situations. Don't worry, it's completely normal." Donnie turned back to his phone. "It's a known psychological phenomenon. You see, in times of great stress and fear, when your senses feel hyper vigilant, the brain can often times..."

"Donnie, fascinating, but not right now! Time isn't on our side!" April reminded him. "It's only have a few hours until dawn! We need a plan!"

"In case you haven't noticed, April, we suck at plans! Leo is the plan guy!" Raph snarled in frustration. "And we lost him! I lost him!"

"Raph, it's not your fault! And we are not giving up!" She grabbed his shoulders. "We'll get him and Mikey back!"

Suddenly, Donnie's phone began to ring. He glanced at it, confused. "An unknown number? Who could..." Donnie answered it hesitantly. "Hello? Who is this?"

"Donnie! You'll never believe where I am right now!" an enthusiastic voice chimed in.

" _MIKEY?!_ " Donnie gasped.

"Mikey?!" Raph shoved his way in, grabbing the phone. "Mikey! Are you okay?! Where are you?!"

"I'm in an actual, real life pay phone booth!" Mikey sounded thrilled. "Dude! I didn't think they existed anymore! It's like I'm Superman!"

"Mikey, do NOT touch anything in there!" Donnie ordered over Raph's shoulder fervidly.

"Mikey, what happened?!" Raph asked him, trying to keep the worry down in his voice. "Are you safe? Where's the delivery truck? Do you know where Leo is?"

"No worries, bros! I have everything completely under control!" Mikey said confidently.

"Oh? No worries? You mean there's no chance of something happening, like you losing your tPhone, which we specifically just told you we needed to find you and the truck?!" Raph asked, sarcasm dripping from his voice.

"Oh... yeah... that was my bad, guys." Mikey said sheepishly. "I wasn't expecting that pothole."

"I'm serious, Mikey! Remember what Master Splinter said about bathrooms up here?! I don't think there's much difference! Let the phone hover, don't press it against your face!"

Raph growled. "Listen, Mikey. You can't lose that truck! Leo's in there! Where is it now?"

"Like I said, no worries! I have the truck!" Mikey said proudly.

"What?" Donnie obviously wasn't sure how to react to that. "Mikey... what did you do?" He sounded a little hesitant, as if he wasn't sure he wanted to know.

"Yeah, you should've seen me, my bros!" Mikey sounded enthusiastic. He went into story mode, and Raph could almost imagine the ecstatic gestures and gleeful facial expressions that he was no doubt making. "I clung onto that truck like pepperoni to sweet, sweet melted pizza cheese, until finally it slowed down, and stopped at a pet store. The dudes driving it got out, and were chatting with a man outside the store. Now, I knew that D said not to do anything, but these guys were probably going to start unloading some of the turtles to sell to the pet shop dude, right? And I couldn't let take the risk that Leo'd be taken as well! So I did the only thing I could think of."

"Tell me you didn't..." Donnie groaned.

"I snuck into the delivery truck when they weren't looking and floored it!" Mikey sounded quite pleased with himself. "You should've seen me, bros! I was in total ninja mode! They didn't even know I was there until I was already blocks away!"

"You stole the delivery truck?!" Raph didn't know whether to scold him or be impressed.

"That is so metal!" Casey gasped reverently.

"They left the keys in it, so it was easy peasy." Mikey scoffed, then sounded a little thoughtful. "'Course, it got a little less easy once the cops started chasing us."

"Mikey, are you saying that you committed motor vehicle theft, and then led the police on a high speed chase?!" Donnie was definitely starting to panic again. "Wait, is _that_ why there were so many sirens out there tonight?!"

"Yup! And you'd be surprised at how fast those delivery trucks can go!" Mikey said enthusiastically. "They were no match for my mad ninja driving skillz, yo!"

"Oh god, Leo's been gone for less then a night, and already we've committed at least three felonies! We're devolving into hardened criminals without him!" Donnie let his hands run over his face in disbelief.

"Mikey, are you sure you're safe now?" Raph asked, concerned. "Are you sure you lost them completely?"

"Totally, dude." Mikey sounded confident. "I've got it parked under the bridge over there, totally hidden and out of sight."

"Stay put, and stay hidden." Raph instructed. "We'll be there as soon as we can."

Donnie grabbed the phone out of Raph's hand. "And after you hand up the phone, back out of the phone booth without touching anything, wipe down your hands on the grass, and try to avoid touching your face until I get there with the hand sanitizer!"

* * *

Using the address that Mikey provided with them, it wasn't long until they found the bridge near an old, abandoned warehouse by the river. At first, there wasn't any sign of life in the area, just the night air and the shadows caused by the occasional moth dancing around the outdated street lighting.

"Mikey!" Raph hissed as loud as he dared as they walked cautiously up to the bridge, trying to keep to the shadows as they looked around. "Where is he?!"

"I... I sense him nearby." April frowned, closing her eyes and putting a hand to her forehead.

As they started to walk across the old, seldom used bridge, an ominous voice spoke in low, gravely tones from the darkness under the bridge. "Who's that tripping over my bridge?"

"Um, what?" Casey froze, looking startled and confused.

Raph sighed and peeled his sweatshirt sling off his shoulder, handing it and its tiny passenger to Casey. "Hang on to her for a sec. Big Billy Goat Gruff needs to make an appearance." He hopped over the railing of the bridge, there was a moment of silence, and then suddenly there was loud smack and the sound of Mikey yelping. Then Raph reappeared as he clambered back up onto the bridge, only this time with Mikey clinging happily to his shell.

Donnie rushed over. "Mikey! Are you okay?! Are you hurt?!" He began critically inspecting the youngest brother for any signs of injuries. He quickly pulled out a small bottle of hand sanitizer and began fussing over the youngest brother

"Relax, Dee! I'm fine!" Mikey scoffed, hopping down off of Raph's shell, trying to escape the mothering genius. "They couldn't touch this!"

"In that case..." Donnie growled as he put the bottle of sanitizer away, then lunged forward, grabbing Mikey and trapping him in a headlock. "What were you thinking?! You could have been killed!"

"Ow! Ow! Ow!" Mikey yelped.

"Don't go too hard on him, Donnie." April intervened. "We would've lost the truck without Mikey."

Donnie sighed and released Mikey, pulling him into a quick hug. "Mikey, I'm very proud of you, you protected Leo. But, maybe next time, you could do it WITHOUT leading half of the city's law enforcement on a high speed chase in a stolen vehicle?!"

"Hm." Mikey pressed a knuckle to his chin, looking a little thoughtful. "I suppose there might've been slightly more stealthy methods." He chuckled and rubbed the back of his head. "But they wouldn't have been nearly as exciting."

Donnie sighed and let Mikey go, straightening up. "We've already had more excitement tonight already then I'm comfortable with. Come on, let's find Leo, then get this truck returned as quickly as possible."

* * *

Mikey led them under the bridge, where the truck was well hidden under a layer of wooden pallets, wadded up plastic bags, a couple of old tires, a few metal barrels, and whatever else Mikey had managed to dig up and throw on there. The way all this garbage stacked around or stuck to the vehicle almost defied logic.

Mikey pushed aside a mattress leaning on its side, revealing the loading doors located at the back of the truck. "Leo!" Mikey called out as he hopped inside. "I'm back with everybody!" He turned to the others. "While I was waiting for you dudes, I tried looking for him, but I couldn't find him." He hopped over to a bin, opening the lid and peeking in. "He has to be in here somewhere, though. Right?"

The others looked through the open doors, and stared at the dozens upon dozens of plastic bins stacked neatly on metal racks, each bin holding several turtles each.

"How are we going to find him?" Casey looked in another bin, looking perplexed. "There has to be a bajillion turtles in here!"

"It must supply the local pet stores." Donnie mused. "This must be the season for restocking on turtles. I wonder if we were once delivered in a truck similar to that one?"

"Oh, crap. Don't go putting thoughts like that in my head, Don." Raph looked around the truck with a new sense of existential crisis.

Mikey turned to April, eyes hopeful. "April, can you do one of your things? You know, your mind powers?"

"I can try." April nodded, then held a hand up to her forehead and closed her eyes, concentrating hard. They all watched her hopefully. "Come on, Leo... Where are you?" she murmured quietly, moving in and passing her hand over the rows of turtles. Then, after a minute or two, she exhaled unhappily and let her hand drop, shaking her head. "I can't sense his aura at all. I don't understand!"

"Is it because he's demutated?" Casey asked, looking around. "Makes him all different?"

"I don't know." April looked around, biting her lip. "I would think that some parts of him would be recognizable."

"Fine then." Donnie's hazel eyes narrowed as he looked over the mass of boxed turtles before him. He put a hand on his hip and held up a finger. "When all else fails, we are going to turn to _science_!"

* * *

"Girl..."

"Girl..."

"Guy..."

"Girl..."

"Guy..."

Raph spoke in a monotone voice as he sat cross legged on the floor of the lair's living area, elbow on knee and cheek resting in his palm as he half heartedly identified each turtle that Casey held in front of him. This was humiliating and stupid and how had things devolved to this point?!

They were all back at the lair now, and the living area had been rearranged slightly to fit two large, inflatable pools. Both pools had been filled with a shallow layer of water, with a short wooden platform sitting in the middle to create an island. Thick black cords wound their way across the floor, powering several sun lamps that beamed down warmly onto flat rocks in both pools.

Each time Raph identified a turtle as female, Casey would put her aside into a large inflatable pool to his right. One of the turtles half submerged had a blue spot on its shell, the female turtle they had accidentally taken originally. Any male turtle was handed off to April, who used a special toxic-free permanent marker that Donnie had given her to scribble a number on its shell, before adding it to the second inflatable pool to her left.

Mikey was in charge of taking care of their turtle guests and he had, of course, embraced his role with enthusiasm. He now sported a huge, fake handlebar mustache, had tied a bow tie around his neck, and draped a white cloth over one arm.

"Greetings, mademoiselles!" he said by the female turtle pool in the fanciest accent he could muster. "Welcome to the Hamato Resort, only the most resplendent getaway for turtles anywhere in New York City! I am your maître d', Michelangelo. Here, we serve only the finest cuisine, and might I interest you ladies in our luxury wading area?"

He reached in to adjust one of the sun lamps, then moved a few of the turtles to more comfortable positions, dropping a few into the large section set up to hold water so they could swim.

He noticed that one of the plastic trays with chopped vegetables was running low, and turned to the kitchen, still trying to remain in his french accent. "Chef Ice Cream Kitty? We need more lettuce!"

Ice Cream Kitty, wearing a tiny chefs hat, sat at the kitchen table, surrounded by piles of vegetables. She gave a meow, and gave one of a head of lettuce a playful swat.

"No, you have to..." Mikey sighed. "Here. I'll show you again." He went to the kitchen and picked up a knife, carefully showing the cat chef once more how to properly chop up the veggies.

"Okay, I think that should be the last of the turtles." Casey wiped his hands on a towel.

April finished writing the number on the last male turtle's shell, then gently released it into the Boy Pool. "So now what?

"We are dealing with exactly 126 turtles, though of course, we can automatically eliminate all the female turtles as possible 'Leo' candidates." Donnie explained, checking over a chart, before going back to tinker on some wires in a computer. "Thus, I had you identify and number the male turtles. Now I'll collect DNA samples from all of them and then run the data through a computer comparing them to the DNA of Leo's I have on file. After that's complete, all we need to do is go over the results, and the identify the numbered turtle with DNA match!" He clicked the case shut on the computer, and stood up.

"Ooh! Dudes! I have an even better plan for finding Leo!" Mikey suddenly bolted upright as an idea hit him. He turned to the fridge, digging around in it, then resurfaced, holding a piece of leftover pizza. "Leo's the only turtle in there that has experienced the delicious perfection that is pizza, right? Therefore, he's going to be the only one unable to resist the tempting lure of the cheesy ambrosia of Papa Antonio's supreme pizza! I'll put this in there with them, and the turtle that makes a dash for it will be our big bro!"

The others looked at each other, then shrugged. They were desperate enough to try anything.

"Give it a try." April gestured towards the male turtle's pool.

Mikey hopped over, then dangled the slice of pizza over the edge of the inflatable pool. He adjusted his mustache, and then crooned, "Le~o! Lookit what I have here, big bro! Pizza! Delicious pizza! Stuffed crust, even!" He lowered the pizza to the floor, in the reach of the turtles within. "Come and get it, Leo! It's all yours!"

They all watched the small pet turtles closely, looking for any sign of a reaction.

After a minute, one of the turtles sitting on a rock fell off.

Donnie sighed and reached in to pick it up. "I'll start with this one, then."

* * *

All they could do now was wait. Donnie worked meticulously in his lab, comparing notes, typing into one of several computers, and fiddling with swabs and vials as he fed data into a machine.

April spent her time trying to help Donnie, while Casey helped Mikey with their new guests. They helped set up a few more sun lamps, clean up some of the messes, and generally kept themselves busy.

Raph, for his part, sat alone on the steps leading up to the lab, not saying much to anybody as he went about his project. He had a leather lace in hand, and was carefully repairing Leo's torn belt and scabbard straps. He used small, neat stitches as he skillfully sewed the leather back together.

As the day went on, and he finally found the finished repair done as perfectly as possible, he then picked up the twin katanas, which had been laying forlornly on the floor next to him. Slowly and meticulously, he began cleaning off all the mud and grass off of the steel blades with a soft cloth. He then picked up a polishing stone, and spent a good deal of time going over every nick and imperfection, before working on making sure that the keen edge was meticulously sharp. The, giving it a good rubdown, he polished it with the bottle of choji oil that Leo always preferred to use. Once he was finished with one sword, he moved onto the other.

After both swords were perfectly cleaned, polished, and oiled, he sheathed them in their scabbards. Then he picked the belt back up and started going through Leo's gear, making sure everything was restocked, clean, functional, and ready for any emergency, a routine that he had watched Leo perform countless times.

After making sure that everything was perfect and back to exactly how his brother would want them, he carefully folded the belt and lay it next to the scabbards. That task done and nothing left to do, he slumped down to let his chin rest on his arms on his knees, his electric green eyes looking at the strip of blue cloth he held in his hands dejectedly.

By this point, nobody had really slept since the night before last, but nobody seemed inclined to go to bed just yet. Finally, Donnie exhaled, and ran his hand over his face, announcing. "Okay, that should be it. The data analysis is complete. Let's find Leo."

Everybody got up, and wordlessly gathered around as he pressed a button on the keyboard. The nearby printer started whirring, printing out the results. Donnie licked his lips, picked up the paper, and read it over anxiously.

Then he slumped back in his chair, letting the paper hang to the side dejectedly. "There was no match." he whispered hoarsely.

"But that... can't be!" April put an arm across her stomach and a hand to her forehead, looking shaken.

"What... what does that mean, Donnie?!" Raph looked stressed.

"That means that none of the male turtles out there are Leo!" Donnie snapped in frustration, throwing the papers up in the air.

Casey looked into the main room of the lair where all the turtles were milling around in the two inflatable pools, then back at Donnie. "Are you sure about that, Donnie? I mean, Leo has to be in there somewhere!"

"I'm positive! There's not even a close call in here!" Donnie growled. He grabbed the paper with the results, and smacked it with his other hand. "Either Leo's not in there, or what happened to him left his DNA so changed that there's no way for me to identify him!"

Mikey rubbed his chin. "Are we... are we sure that Leo iwasn't/i secretly a girl? Oh!" He suddenly had a thought. "Maybe he started out as a girl turtle, then when we got mutated, he turned into a boy, and now he's a girl again! Maybe the mutagen turns all mutant turtles into guys, even if they started out as a girl! Dudes! What if I'm a girl?!" He held his head in both hands, mind blown.

"Mikey, that is probably one of the dumbest things I've ever heard." Donnie gave him an unamused look.

Casey ran his hands over his hair, obviously stressed. "So, what do we do now?!"

"I don't know!" Donnie covered his face, obviously frustrated and exhausted.

"You know..." April was pacing, trying to think through this. She paused and looked up. "We did lose sight of the truck for a short while. Maybe... maybe there was more then one in the area?"

"If we got the wrong truck..." Raph's eyes darted about as he came to a realization "Then Leo... Leo could be anywhere!"

Donnie let out a long, ragged breath, letting his swivel chair slowly turn as he thought. "I... I suppose I could try and hack into the delivery company's database, see if I couldn't uncover other truck routes in the area and ideally some delivery schedules. If they stopped at any petstores for deliveries, we'll... we'll have to retrieve all the turtles from that store for testing."

"Donnie, dude, I don't know how many more turtles we can fit down here..." Mikey said with a frown, looking back at the two pools.

"And it's already been almost a day." Raph's green eyes widened in horror with realization. "If Leo was delivered to a pet shop, who's not to say that somebody hasn't stopped by and taken him home already as a pet!"

"Oh, man, we'll never find him then!" Casey sounded horrified.

"Don't say that, Casey!" April said fiercely. "We'll find Leo! We have to!"

Donnie swallowed hard at the daunting scope of the task ahead of them. "If... if it comes to that... the stores keeps records of their sales..."

"Oh right, Donnie! Because that's what stores do, they take down the identity and addresses of everybody who shops in their store!" Raph snapped angrily, fists clenched. "Face it, Casey's right! We'll never find Leo now! I fucking lost our big brother!" He punched the wall, then turned and furiously stalked out to the kitchen.

Everybody was silent for a moment, exhaustion and fear and grief on everybody's faces.

"I'll go talk to him." April said quietly, and stepped out of the lab, following Raph.

* * *

Out in the kitchen, Raph was sitting at the table again, just staring at Leo's gear and swords. April came over and sat down next to him.

Raph clenched his fists, tears starting to form in his eyes. "All he wanted was for us to go on a run together!"

"Raph..." April put a hand on his large green one gently. "You are an amazing brother, and you would do anything for Leo. He knows that."

"And yet I lost him!" Raph snapped. "I might never see him again! Leo could spend the rest of his life neglected and hungry and alone in some filthy, algae covered turtle bowl!"

"It's not your fault, Raph!" April said fiercely. "And we're not going to give up! Never! We'll find him!"

Raph let his head fall into his hands, exhausted and frustrated and frightened, all at once. Finally, he just spoke in a small voice that April had never heard him use before. "I just... I just want my brother back."

At that moment, a familiar, black hatted young witch peered around the entrance to the lair. "'ello? Turtles? You in 'ere?"

Mikey perked up as he peeked out of the lab door. "Shini!" He turned towards the lab eagerly. "Guys! Shini's here!"

"Ah!" Shinigami's face lit up, and she turned back towards the sewer tunnel. "They are in 'ere, Karai!"

April stood up, face serious. "You two have perfect timing, we could really use your help right now. We're in a lot of trouble. We lost Leo!"

"Oh... Well... do we have a surprise for you then." Karai's voice sounded strained as she came into view, turning to scold somebody. "Oof! Hey, stop dragging your feet! You're not making this any easier!"

And as she walked into view, the tottering, swaying green mutant she was trying to support protested in a slurred, oddly inflected voice, "I'mma ninja. I _don't_ drag my feet, Ka _rai_."

Everybody in the lair froze and stared in disbelief.

" _Leo_?!"


	6. Home

There, leaning heavily on Karai, was their missing leader and big brother, Leonardo. He was missing his mask and gear, of course, but, most importantly at the moment, was still very much a human sized mutant turtle.

"Hey!" Bleary sapphire blue eyes lit up as he noticed them, and he lurched out of Karai's grasp to try and clamber over the turnstiles into the lair. " Heeeey guys! I was sooooo... so worried 'bout cha!"

"Leo! No!" Karai lunged for him. "We'll help you over!"

"I'm FINE!" Leo protested thickly, his movements oddly awkward and off balance. He tried to wave her off with exaggerated movements, like his limbs were too heavy. "I am moooooore... more then capa.. Capabi... Capaaaabbbb... Ack!" Apparently, struggling with proper pronunciation and trying to keep his balance at the same time was too much for him at the moment, and with a yelp he tripped and toppled over the turnstile, bounced down the few steps, and landed face down on the floor below.

Karai winced, then sighed.

"LEO!" Donnie was over in an instant and kneeling by his side, with Raph, Mikey, and the two humans hovering worriedly overhead, obviously wanting to help, but not sure what to do. What was wrong with him?! Was Leo hurt? Poisoned? Ill?

"Do~nnie..." Leo's voice was muffled against the stone floor, then he struggled to push himself up on his elbows. Donnie and Raph's hands were instantly there, helping him. He squinted his eyes as he tried to focus on his brothers. "Who... who's turns wassit... ta mop th' floorsh this week? Becaush they... are... _fiiiilllthy_! Imma have... Imma have soooo many wordsh 'bout that later!"

Donnie gave him a tentative sniff, and his worry melted into absolute disbelief. "Leo... Are you... Are you _drunk_?!"

"He is so sloshed, it isn't even funny." Karai muttered as she and Shini climbed in over the turnstile and moved over to stand next to them.

"It is a little funny." Shini corrected her.

Even with the night that they had just had, this was probably the most baffling twist of events to happen to them yet. Leo going out and getting drunk seemed as out of character as Mikey suddenly announcing that he was going onto a strictly carb-free diet.

Leo struggled to a sitting position with help, sitting in an oddly relaxed and swaying posture. He raised an uncertain hand up. "Believe me... It... It was totally unintenshinal..."

"So you're not actually hurt? You're okay?" Mikey squatted down next to him hopefully, wiggling with anticipation and joy at seeing his oldest brother before him. "Can I hugs then?"

Leo gave a beaming, lopsided grin and held out his arms to Mikey. "Of coursh you can hugs, Mikey!"

"Oh, yeah! Leo!" Mikey didn't need a second invitation, eagerly launching into a tackle-hug. The wide grin on his face almost hid the faintest tears of relief in his eyes. "I was worried about you, bro!"

"So anybody want to tell us what this is all about?" Karai raised a curious eyebrow.

"I was hoping you had an explanation! He's been missing all night! We were going crazy looking for him!" Donnie looked up to Karai, totally perplexed.

Karai gave him an exasperated look. "Don't look at me! I don't know what's going on, he just showed up outside our door like this! And going on and on about giant spiders."

"Spider _people_! Huuuge spider people!" With Mikey still clinging tightly to him, Leo threw up his hands and almost fell backwards, but a startled Raph lunged forward and caught him.

"Yeah... It's safe to say that we were caught a little off guard by... this." Karai continued, waving her hand towards Leo. "He didn't have his sword or his tPhone with him, which worried us, and he kept blaming those 'spider people' when asked. Besides the 'spider people', the only other thing we could get out of him was that he wanted to find you guys so that you wouldn't worry."

"Thus, we are here." Shini finished her story for her, tilting her head slightly as she leaned over to watch curiously. "By the way, drunk Leo is very, very cute. He's all chatty and friendly and huggy!"

"Hey! _Shhhhhhhhhh_!" Leo was obviously feeling playful and was only half serious as he awkwardly tried hush her. "Don't... don't be saying things like that, Sh- _i_ -ni! I've got... I've gots a reputation to uphold! Very important! Imma sensei now, doncha know!" He perked up as he thought of something, and eagerly started swiping the air at Donnie and Raph to his side, trying to grab them and pull them closer, but missing each time. "Ooh! Ooh! Hey! Guys! Hey guys! Idea! I gotta great idea!" Giving up on grabbing his purple but somehow snagging his red brother, he pulled Raph in close and hooked his other arm around Mikey's shoulders as well, chortling with glee as he shared his plan in a drunken, conspiratorial whisper. "I'm gonna totally try that one ninjitshu style! The 'Drunken Master' style that Master Splinter showed us that one time! It will be _great_!"

Donnie looked quite concerned as he looked Leo over. "Um, this might not be the best time for that, Leo."

"What you talkin' 'bout, Donnie? Thish is the perfect time! I NEVER get drunk like thish!" Leo gestured towards himself indignantly.

Donnie sighed, and looked over to April, who shrugged. "Well, at least he's self aware enough to realize that."

Leo twisted about to grab a startled Raph by the face, squeezing his cheeks between his hands and looking at him like he was explaining the most serious thing in the world to him, eye ridges furrowed in concentration and body swaying slightly. "Raph! I need... I need you to... Raph! Listen!.. I need you to help me into the dojo... because the world is spinning 'n I can't seem to walk straight at th' moment. And then... and then you need to try an' _punch_ me!"

"Um...?" Raph stammered, green eyes wide, not sure at all how to deal with this unexpected situation.

"We'll do that later, Leo." Donnie said soothingly, mentally filing away the plan to 'never' as he peeled Leo's hands off of poor Raph's face. "Right now we're trying to figure out what's going on here."

"Yeah, dude! You really freaked us out! We found your gear and things by the pond, and didn't know what had happened! Speaking of which..." Casey had moved behind Leo, retrieving his can of blue spray paint. He shook it as he grabbed the edge of the lead turtle's shell with one hand, holding him steady as he then carefully sprayed 'L-E-O' in large blue letters across the carapace. "There. We can't miss that." Casey stepped back and looked at his work, satisfied.

Leo looked startled as he tried to peer over his shoulder at what Casey had done. "Wait, what?"

"Mine's a face!" Mikey said proudly, turning to show Leo the orange smiley face painted on his shell.

"Um, sorry, Leo. We've had a _really_ long night. I'd just roll with it for now." April advised him as she knelt down next to him, putting a hand to his shoulder. "So what happened back at the pond. And what's this about spider people?"

Donnie gestured towards Leo's sitting form. "And how did you end up so... intoxicated?"

Leo held up a finger, grinning drunkenly. "Well, sit back, 'cause have I gotta story to tell!"

* * *

"...and so finally, it turned out that all Big Drider wanted from the start was my help saving his sick kid brother! Go figure!" Leo threw up his hands as if dumbfounded by the ending.

"Wait, so let me get this straight. You were attacked, disarmed, and then kidnapped by this giant spider-humanoid creature, taken miles down under the city via some previously unknown, hidden tunnels, where you eventually found a whole secret underground village filled with these giant 'drider' people?" Donnie sounded unnerved by this revelation.

"Yeah, and if they're anything like the drider I fought, they're probably all suuuper sneaky and strong! Like, I got _flattened_ in my fight with him! Bad! " Leo said enthusiastically. "I hope I can train with him someday!"

"Wonderful." Donnie muttered, mentally making notes to come up with ideal weapons to deal with hypothetical giant drider invasions later.

"Anywaysh." Leo straightened up, getting back into 'story telling mode'. " I could see that the reason that Little Brother Drider was so sick was probabbilably from the bad spill in the junyard, jus' like the dog we found earlier. Mr Woof, remember? And I was like... 'Dudes! Stand back. I got this!' and I went right to him, and did the healing mantras and he must've been sicker for longer then Mr Woof had been, because it was much harder, but after a while, I managed to nutreal... nuuuuuutra... nuuuuh-tren..."

"Neutralize?" Donnie offered.

"That!" Leo agreed. "I did that to the poison. And the Big Drider who brought me there was so happy! All the driders were! They must have been important to that village, like 'Kids of the Chief' important, because the whole drider village seemed to want to throw a party! And don't worry, I was thinkin' about you guys and how I needed to get home, but I was so tired after that long fight and doing two difficult mantra. I figured that eating and drinking before heading back up wouldn't hurt. So I ate some of their food they offered, I'm pretty certain it was bugs by the way, and then drank some kind of fruit drink. And, then... then... I might've had a few more cups of that. And I now suspect that it _might_ have had some alcoholic content in it..."

"Ya think?" April asked dryly.

"Yeah..." Leo admitted. "Like I shaid, I didn't mean to get drunk! I don't think the driders meant to get me drunk either. They seemed kinda surprised."

"Apparently seven foot tall, four to five hundred pound giant arachnids have a higher alcohol tolerance then a five foot six, one hundred fifty three pound turtle." Donnie muttered sarcastically.

"Yeah, go figure! Anyways, Big Drider was worried and obviously wanted me to stay the night, but I was like _'No!_ '" Leo looked stern and held up a finger, as if reenacting the scene. "'No! My brothers... My brothers are going to be worried about me! I.. I hafta go home to them. Right. Now!' That's what I told him! And so finally he brought me back. Once we got up to the surface, I tried to let the driders know that I was okay to get home by myself. But they didn't seem to believe me for some reason!" Leo huffed. "Well, as friendly as the dridersh were, I still didn't want to show them where our lair was. We hadn't reached _that_ level of trust yet! So I had them drop me off at Karai's place instead."

"Wait." Karai looked offended. "You didn't want to lead the giant spider people to your secret lair, so instead you showed them where my secret lair was?! Leo! How could you?!"

"Pft, Karai!" Leo scoffed, amused. "You silly! The Foot lair isn't secret!"

"Yes it is!" she insisted.

"I hate to say it, Karai, but no, it's not." April shook her head, grinning.

"Yeah, like, everybody knows where the Foot base is, sis!" Mikey threw an arm around her playfully. "That big old scary building might as well have a 'Beware! Shadowy Ninja Clan Inside!' neon sign on it."

"I was going to talk to you about that, Karai." Shini added, pouncing on Karai's other side and mirroring Mikey's embrace. " I was going to suggest some landscaping, a bit of paint and additional lighting? A butterfly garden, perhaps? You have to admit, our headquarters do give off a certain 'evil' vibe."

"Oh, you guys suck." Karai pouted.

Shini laughed, then turned to ask curiously in her lilting accent. "So... you don't sound very upset with the drider fellows, Leo. Did you really just drop everything to help him just like that? I mean, as you say, he did kidnap you, after all. Not the most polite way of asking for help."

Leo scoffed and waved dismissively. "Bah, 'course I helped him! He was only trying to get help for his little brother! Why would I be mad at him for that? I'd do the same thing for any of my brothers!" He reached over and rubbed Mikey's head fondly.

"Aw! Leo loves me!" Mikey beamed, wiggling under the brotherly head rub.

"Of course I love you, Mikey! You're my little brother!" Leo beamed back happily. "And I love Raph and I love Donnie! I love all of my family! I love all of you guys so very, very much!"

"Group hug?!" Mikey suggested hopefully.

"Group hug!" Leo agreed happily.

"Ghk!" Raph gave a surprised noise as Leo lurched forward, grabbing as many family members around him as he could, including him. His jaw tightened, and he looked sharply away. Finally, he leaned against Leo stiffly. "You're an idiot." he muttered in a cracked voice. His arm slowly crept up around Leo's shell, and, without looking, he slipped Leo's missing blue mask over his face, back where it belonged. Then he pulled his drunk older brother into a tight, possessive hug, his voice husky."And Leo? Tomorrow, we can go on that run you wanted. We can go across the whole damn city if you want."

Leo sat back to blink at him for a moment, then nodded and reached up to straighten his mask so it sat more naturally. "Hey. Raph." He leaned forward to press his forehead against Raph's, whispering. "Don't... _fucking..._ swear."

Raph snorted, then couldn't help a hoarse laugh.

Satisfied with his examination and convinced that his brother was, in fact, uninjured, Donnie finally moved over to also give Leo a fierce, relieved hug. "Count me in for that run as well, Leo. But not until after you've sobered up and dealt with the massive hangover I'm sure you'll be suffering come morning."

Then they turned to look at Mikey.

"Hey, don't look at me." he protested matter of factly. "I still fully intend to eat pizza and play Ultimate Titan City Rampage nonstop until I'm in a happy, video game induced, pizza stuffed coma. I'm estimating that will take a minimum of four days. Thus, I already have concrete plans for tomorrow night that I simply cannot alter."

Raph growled and narrowed his eyes at Mikey threateningly.

"Or... I suppose I could pencil in one night off tomorrow to go on a run as well." Mikey backtracked slightly, moving beside Donnie to join in the brotherly hug. "That will put my coma schedule behind by one day, but I guess I could adjust my card game tournament with Ice Cream Kitty coming up next weekend to make up for it. Luckily, that dude is flexible."

"Aw, I luve you guys too." Leo happily wrapped his arms around them as best as he could, returning the hug.

After a moment, though, his grip loosened a bit as he noticed something over Donnie's shell. "Um... guys? Why are there a bunch of turtles in our living room?"

There was a moment of awkward silence. Then Mikey's hand slid upwards to gently cover Leo's eyes.

* * *

 ** _Bonus Scene:_ **

It was early in the morning, and Leo was sitting with his face down on the kitchen table, looking absolutely miserable.

Donnie walked by, setting a glass of water and a few aspirin beside him. "Here, Leo. This should help."

""Was our kitchen light always so bright?" Leo asked unhappily, shifting a hand to take the pills and wincing as he downed them. He set the glass of water back down, and let his head return to its face-down resting position. "I could swear our kitchen light wasn't always so bright."

April slumped down in her chair next to Raph and Casey. "Oh, what a night." she looked exhausted herself as she cricked her neck. She took the plate full of scrambled eggs that Mikey had made for her, and started eating. "Thanks for helping us get the truck and all those pet turtles back where they belonged, Karai."

"Oh, it was no problem." Karai chuckled. She was amusing herself by watching the small female pond turtle with a blue spot on its shell as it moved around in the plastic tub sitting on the table. "The adventures you turtles get up to are always a refreshing change of pace from boring, human affairs."

"I still can't believe Casey attacked a cop and Mikey went on a high speed chase in a stolen truck." Leo grumbled to nobody in particular. "Seriously, guys. I was gone for less then a day!"

"So what are we going to do with little Leonetta?" Mikey asked, balancing three plates of scrambled eggs up to the table.

"I also can't believe you named her that." Leo finally lifted his head enough to narrow his bleary eyes at Mikey. He moved to start sipping on the glass of water.

"She's a wild turtle, not a pet." Donnie took the plate balanced on top of Mikey's head as he moved around to take a seat at the table. "Normally I'd say that we take her back to her pond, but that's probably not a good idea until the city officials get that chemical spill cleaned up."

"I'll take her until then." Karai offered, dangling a piece of lettuce before the little turtle and watching her with amused smile. "I can make sure she's fed and taken care of until her home is safe again." A mischievous twinkle appeared in her eyes, and she looked up at Leo coyly. "After all, I've been wanting a pet turtle for my very own for a while now."

Leo choked on his water.

* * *

 **Author's Notes:**

And we're done!

So a few notes on the story. Originally, I was going to have both sides going on, Leo's adventures with the drider on one hand, and his brothers' attempts to 'rescue' him on the other. But it didn't work out very well. For one, it made Raph, Donnie, and Mikey's side of the story seem pointless and trivial, and I didn't want that. On the other, Leo's adventures would've taken a few days, and I couldn't get the timelines to work out. At some point, there would be no reason that the brothers wouldn't have called in all their allies to help find Leo, and man, if I thought the story was long now... There are a few leftovers from this attempt. For one, the pizza flyer Mikey was so excited over in the beginning was added in as a clue to the drider that the turtles love pizza. He was originally going to try and lure Leo out with a box of stolen pizza, and the original 'big reveal' when Leo was hiding in the tree was started off with a pizza box being flung out and landing in front of the tree, much to Leo's confusion.

Also, Leo wasn't going to be drunk at the end. He was just going to hop in, there would be a lot of brotherly fluff and affection, and then the others would basically collapse from exhaustion, and Leo would go about trying to clean up their mess fondly by calling Karai. As cute as it was, it was also rather patronizing to the other turtles, and once I got the idea of drunk Leo in my head, I knew I had to go with it. Drunk Leo is best Leo.


End file.
